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Heart Eyes Misses the Mark

Heart Eyes (2025) directed by Josh Ruben

2/7/25

*No Spoilers*

Horror movies are hard to make, the hardest being slasher flicks, because everyone has seen at least one in their lifetime. It’s easy to fall into the same tempo that other slasher flicks have, but what breaks my heart is when a slasher takes a unique concept and squanders it. Heart Eyes, directed by Josh Ruben, is a great example of this.

I usually know when I won’t like a movie, I get a tingling sensation in my gut and I know I’m in for a bad time. The concept of the movie sounded interesting to me, a serial killer who targets couples on Valentine’s Day stalks enemies-to-lovers coworkers who must work together to survive. That is an interesting premise, but the execution was bland and unoriginal.

The movie centers around Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding), coworkers tasked with nullifying a company PR crisis on Valentine’s Day. However, when they’re mistaken for a couple by the Heart Eyes Killer, their night spirals out of control, leading to death and mayhem.

I was hopeful during the first few minutes of the film. What I was hoping for was a darkly macabre critique on dating culture, as the opening sequence of the film made me chortle from the goofy actions of the characters who were soon slaughtered. It was a humorous sequence, but also heavy-handed and blunt with it’s jokes. This brand of humor tainted the movie, making it borderline unwatchable. I would’ve been fine with constant tongue-in-cheek jokes if they were good. But they weren’t good, none of them were, and it ruined my viewing experience. While watching this film, there were several middle-grade children in the audience and I noticed they were the only ones laughing at the ‘funny’ parts of the movie. It tried so hard to be quirky and funny, almost like a black comedy, but it wasn’t a black comedy, it was a mediocre slasher film with terrible jokes written by older folks for a younger audience.

There was a scene that I would’ve really loved, an emotional scene where Jay and Ally’s characters were finally opening up to each other, and it would’ve been the best scene in the movie, except the entirety of it is overshadowed by the violent sex noises of the couple behind them. It would’ve been fine if you could faintly hear the couple’s moaning, but the sound guys pulled out all the stops with wet clapping sounds, sometimes louder than the actor’s themselves. Imagine the scene from Titanic where Jack dies, now picture the same scene with aggressively loud porn playing in the background. It wouldn’t surprise me if Holt and Gooding did this scene not knowing what was going to be plugged in the background, then saw the end result at the screening and were mortified. The only good scene in the entire movie was ruined by this film’s stupid juvenile humor. I love a good joke, especially raunchy ones, but this film has no idea what it wants to be. Is it a black comedy, or is it a horror film? It can’t make up it’s mind.

You can always tell when a white person is writing a black character, you can always tell when a man is writing a female character, and you can always tell when people over the age of fifty are writing characters under the age of thirty. There were so many brainrot sentences in this film that my brain was slowly growing numb from the viewing experience. Phrases such as incel, beta, troll, sugar daddy, love language, algorithm, and shooting my shot were all used, and they were all used in a clumsy way, as if the writers weren’t used to the crazy slang the kids of today use. One character even used the sentence “incel-beta-troll” to describe the killer. It was all so painful to watch. After watching the movie, I checked to see what else the writers worked on and it did not surprise me to learn the writers behind Heart Eyes were the same masterminds who constructed Freaky (2020) and Happy Death Day 2U (2019).

The protagonists and the killer are both extremely dumb. There are points in this movie where both Jay and Ally have a clear shot to kill Heart Eyes and they don’t pull the trigger. Even when they do, they wound him in some arbitrary place that doesn’t stop him from hurting others. Likewise, the killer has several opportunities to kill the two and blows it everytime. The killer goes from being a spectacular marksman, one who can nail a target from fifty feet away, and seconds later he can hardly hit Ally at all. Those who watched the movie might argue that the plot twist (if you can even call it that) explained this discrepancy, but it doesn’t and I would be happy to argue about it in my DMs.

Also, I predicted who the killer was in the first twenty minutes. I also predicted the plot twist and neither of them were shocking at all. Not to mention the killer’s motivations are so vague and stupid I was angry by the time the credits rolled.

What saddens me is that Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding are good actors, they’re a big part of the reason why I saw the movie in the first place. Their acting was a highlight of the movie. They weren’t god tier, but they were good, and getting someone to care about a two-dimensional character is hard. Holt and Gooding took two flat characters and enhanced them and that’s something I can appreciate. My only hope is that this movie does well at the box office and the two of them can move on to more apt rolls that are better suited for their talents.

Another aspect of the movie I enjoyed was the fight scenes. They felt quick and fluid, which I enjoyed. That’s pretty much all there is to say about this disappointment of a movie. If you’re planning a Valentine’s date night go watch Companion instead. This movie is not worth your time.

Final Grade: D

Rick Stepp (irresponsibleink@gmail.com)

Blood and Honey 2 review

**No Spoilers**

I watched Blood and Honey 2 on opening night and I was surprised. The first movie was mediocre and my hopes for the sequel were in the gutter. It seems director Rhys Frake-Waterfield worked out some kinks from the first movie. Maybe constructive criticism did its job here and Frake-Waterfield listened to the reviews of the first film.

The first Blood and Honey film put spectacle over storytelling. The production team expected the sensationalism of the concept to carry it through and they were mistaken. Reviewing the first film in any serious capacity would be a mistake, as it’s clear they weren’t trying to make a serious film. They took the sequel more seriously, which opened the door for guys like me to tear into it. For people like me who have seen a lot of slasher flicks, Blood and Honey was nothing to write home about. During my viewing of the first film, I had to fight to stay awake.

The sequel changed some details from the first film. For starters, this film includes characters such as Owl and Tigger, who weren’t in the public domain when the first movie was in production. I was pissed Tigger wasn’t in the first film. Tigger is the Batman to Pooh’s Superman and if anyone can tell you with a straight face they prefer Pooh to Tigger they are not to be trusted. Another change I enjoyed was the redesign of Pooh and Piglet. I understand the original design was about taking the original character of Pooh and making him scary, but you can’t tell me that Pooh is supposed to be a bear-human hybrid and then show me a man with yellow leathery skin. In this film, they updated Pooh to look more animalistic, giving him hints of fur and razor-sharp teeth.

They also changed the leading man, recasting Christopher Robin’s character with producer Scott Chambers. The acting in this film is pretty standard. The strongest link in the crew was Tallulah Evans who had good charisma as her character Lexy. Except Lexy, the supporting roles were not greatly noticeable and they didn’t take up a lot of runtime.

The special effects were a step up, as well. In the first film, the crummy effects made the gore look a lot less like blood and guts and more like some cheap props you could buy at a discount store. I'm surprised that Pooh didn't appear after the credits and thank PartyCity for sponsoring the movie. In the sequel, the props looked very professional. The gore looked real enough to make your stomach turn but not so real you can’t enjoy snacking during the movie.

Character-wise, I was invested in Christopher’s story. I was rooting for him right from the beginning. This film opens with everyone in his small town believing he’s a brutal killer and that leaves him on a quest to deal with his trauma and confront his monsters (both real and figurative). I liked the supporting characters. It was very endearing to see how much Lexy and Bunny (Thea Evans) cared about Christopher and believed in him when a lot of people didn’t.

While I was invested in Christopher’s journey, the first three-quarters of the movie dragged a bit. Christopher is on a quest for answers, so naturally, a lot of the film is him trying to get to those answers any way he can. But this is still a slasher film! During this “investigative” period, they throw in a few kills to keep us invested, but Christopher and Pooh don’t even confront each other until the final quarter of the film.

Speaking of the kills, they were very brutal. Bear traps, exploding campers, flaming chainsaws, what fun! A lot of people may think, ‘A flaming chainsaw? That isn’t realistic!’ All I have to say is, dude, if you’re worried about how a flaming chainsaw isn’t realistic then maybe a movie about animal-human hybrids isn’t for you.

The score was fine, but there were times when the music was a little out of place. It was disorienting to be watching a sad or frightening scene and hear music that sounded hopeful. The narrator also took the piss out of the movie. It was so jarring to watch a serious and intense scene and then to jump to narration like someone is reading a bedtime story to us.

About that plot twist… Words cannot describe how out of left field it was. I’m glad they explained where the creatures came from, but… yikes. It was entertaining, but a bit convoluted. Also, why did Pooh have to be that character the whole time? That just complicates Christopher and Pooh’s relationship in a way it didn’t need to be complicated. They already had a troubled past together, so why make it more tragic for no reason?

Then there was the rave scene. I almost cheered when Tigger came onto the scene. I love Tigger! Whether he’s bouncing around in a colorful cartoon or murdering people with his claws and calling his victims fluorescent bitches, Tigger is the OG of the Hundred Acre Wood. And it was so fun to see Pooh batter people around while trap music played. It reminded me of that party bus scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022). I also loved how Pooh and the others kept Tigger in a cage because they knew how fucking crazy he was.

Was it a good movie? Uh, sure? It wasn’t the best slasher I’ve ever seen but watching it wasn’t a complete waste of time. I would wait until this one hits streaming services before you go watch it. A part of me feels stupid for spending money to watch such a mediocre movie when I could have just waited for it to come to Peacock. That being said, I’m genuinely excited to see what else the Twitsted Childhood Universe has to offer.

I believe Frake-Waterfield is self-aware about how stupid these movies are. But they’re fun to watch and I bet they’re pretty fun to make. There are worse moves to watch this weekend.

Final score = 62.5%

Rick Stepp (calebstepp23@gmail.com)

Invincible Ups the Ante

*Spoiler free thoughts on Invincible S3 premiere*

2/7/25

Invincible has always thrived on emotional conflict and subverting expectations, but the season three premiere ups the ante as Mark faces off against his greatest villain yet - Cecil Stedman. I did not expect to finish the second episode of the season with my heart in my throat and being sick to my stomach. The first two episodes of the season pay off a lot of emotional stakes that were set up in season two, and seeing Mark at odds with Cecil might be my favorite conflict of the entire series, not counting season one’s end fight.

After killing Angstrom Levy, Mark enters season three with a desperate need to maintain responsibility and a higher standard for himself. He’s chronically training so he can be better, so what happened to Levy doesn’t happen again. Cecil is determined to save the world, but he isn’t determined to save himself. While Mark is desperate to preserve his morals, Cecil is more concerned about the end goal of safety, safety for humanity and for the world. However, he fails to recognize that if his efforts do pay off, the world may be safe, but it might not be worth living in. Cecil makes some decisions at the end of episode two that he may learn to regret as the season progresses. Cecil knows that he’s trying to save the world, but he no longer recognizes why he’s trying to save it.

Mark has a barrage of problems, and none of them have an easy answer. What is he going to do when the Viltrimites come back? How will he operate now that there’s bad blood between him and Cecil? Should he feel guilty about killing the man who tried to kill his family? Can evil individuals be reformed? These questions of morality tend to be the center conflict of the show, while the heart will always be the family aspect. Mark has his brother and mom to look after, and the Guardians might be the most nuclear family on telivision.

We should be very excited to see where this season takes us.

Rick Stepp (irresponsibleink@gmail.com)