Heart Eyes rather surprised me. For a movie that sounded like the grimdark sequel to the Emoji Movie, I wound up really enjoying it. Partly because it’s a rom-com slasher that takes its romantic comedy angle just as seriously as its slasher angle (in a funny way).

It stars Olivia Holt as an advertising exec for romance products in a world where a Valentine’s Day killer has been hacking up lovers for the past two years. She has a meet cute with a hot guy who, it turns out, has been brought in to fix her ad pitch. They aren’t a couple… technically… but that never stopped a Heart Eyed masked killer before.

Part of this film’s strength AND weakness is its devotion to its clichéd rom-com angle. If it weren’t for the intro sequence with creative and bloody kills, you might not even know you were in a slasher flick. The cliché meet cute and even bigger workplace surprise has been done many times before. But not in a rom-com/slasher.

The fact it buries itself in the clichés kind of slows the movie down but I love the dedication to the bit. And, hey, the jokes are pretty funny and the film is solidly brutal as a slasher film. Just because it’s opening around Valentine’s Day and it has a cute couple doesn’t mean it shies away from being a raw brutal and darkly funny slasher film.

So I’m giving it a high score with a bump for being a slasher so dedicated to its rom-com angle. It just made me laugh at how much it sticks to the joke. It’s a good, grisly watch.

Score: 85