Heart Eyes: A Generic Slasher That Fails to Stand Out (Blu-ray)

The Film:

It's already well-known that horror is perhaps the hardest genre to do anything the least bit original with, but that becomes even harder when you start to break it down into specific sub-genres. Slashers, for instance, present an interesting challenge in that you need to come up with new & interesting reasons for there to be someone going around killing people, on top of it needing to be an intriguing & compelling story. The filmmakers behind "Heart Eyes" have opted to make a Valentine's Day killer their focus, and while it's an idea that's obviously already been played with before in movies like "My Bloody Valentine" and "Valentine," they strive to put their own unique spin on the concept. Will they be able to take the idea and deliver something new & exciting, or is this yet another horror outing doomed to get lost in the shuffle?

The film begins by telling us that a masked killer dubbed "Heart Eyes" has been slaughtering couples on Valentine's Day in various cities for the last few years, most recently in Seattle. We meet Abby McCabe (Olivia Holt), who works in advertising and has recently gone through a breakup. After her latest pitch for a commercial, which involves doomed couples, is met with extreme ridicule in light of the ongoing murders, her boss brings in Jay Simmons (Mason Gooding) as a consultant. This is rather awkward because this is the same man she happened to have a slightly embarrassing encounter with at a coffee shop earlier, but they press on and agree to have dinner so they can discuss ideas. The dinner doesn't go well and comes to an abrupt end, but a random encounter with Abby's ex afterward has her and Colin kissing. However, little do they know that Heart Eyes is watching, and that their night is about to get a lot worse.

As mentioned, the idea of having a slasher revolve around Valentine's Day is hardly new, so the challenge here is to incorporate something different into the concept in order to help it stand out from the other films that have already toyed with it before. With "Heart Eyes," that would appear to be an awkward romance that was never really meant to be a romance, but which ends up blooming into one under extraordinary circumstances. It's mildly cute to watch it happen, but is it enough to set it apart from the others in an already-crowded field?

Sadly, the answer ends up being a somewhat firm "no," because while it may be cute to watch for a little while, it doesn't do much to boost a rather flimsy slasher tale that simply doesn't try very hard to do anything different with the sub-genre. As with any rom-com, we know this couple, who initially seem like they're not meant to be, are going to fall for each other, all while Heart Eyes mindlessly goes about killing people in their attempt to get to them. Again, it provides a small amount of amusement, but in this case, it just doesn't help out very much in terms of making it more engaging or compelling.

This ultimately all comes down to a rather weak ending that basically has the writers saying "Here's the random answer behind who's killing everyone, and here's their random reason for doing it." It's the kind of ending that truly makes it feel as though they didn't care, which is unfortunate because all that's going to do is make the audience not care. One has to assume that that wasn't the intended goal, but with so little thought put into their big reveal, it was pretty much inevitable.

In the end, "Heart Eyes" ends up being just another rather generic slasher that didn't do nearly enough to stand out from the multitudes just like it. They may have tried to add a splash of romantic-comedy goofiness to the mix in order to add a hint of levity to the increasing body count, but it simply can't overcome the blandness of your typical masked killer mystery, sealing its fate to become just another forgotten slasher entry among many others.

Video/Audio:

"Heart Eyes" comes to Blu-ray in a 2.39:1, 1080p High Definition transfer of excellent quality. This is yet another horror outing with a multitude of dark scenes, but the picture always remains perfectly sharp & clear throughout its 90-minute runtime. Likewise, the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is fantastic, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in outstanding quality. Overall, Sony has done a wonderful job in both departments for the film's Blu-ray debut.

Special Features:

Commentary with Director Josh Ruben

Murders & Meet Cutes: The Making of Heart Eyes (8 Minutes): A featurette that goes behind the scenes of the film with the cast & crew.

Gag Reel (3 Minutes)

Deleted Scenes (5 Sequences, 5 Minutes)

Conclusion:

"Heart Eyes" may attempt to shake things up and add a bit of levity to its slasher proceedings by incorporating a splash of rom-com goofiness, but it ends up not being nearly enough to offset the blandness of your typical masked killer mystery and a remarkably weak ending that had little thought put into it, ultimately turning it into just another generic slasher that doesn't do nearly enough to stand out from the crowd.

Score: 2.5/5

Available on Blu-ray starting tomorrow

Follow me on Twitter @BeckFilmCritic.