Heart Eyes is a 2025 American romantic comedy slasher film directed by Josh Ruben and written by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon (who also produces), and Michael Kennedy. The film stars Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding as a pair of coworkers who are mistaken as a couple by a serial killer; Gigi Zumbado, Michaela Watkins, Devon Sawa, and Jordana Brewster also star. Heart Eyes was theatrically released on February 7, 2025, by Sony Pictures Releasing in North America and by Republic Pictures (through Paramount Pictures) internationally. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and has grossed $26 million worldwide.

Plot

For the past few years, a serial killer known as "Heart Eyes" has moved from different cities in the United States, killing multiple couples on Valentine's Day. In the present year, Heart Eyes moves to Seattle and murders two couples; one at a winery and another at a spa. Elsewhere, Ally, a pitch designer for a jewelry company who has recently broken up with her boyfriend, is being ridiculed for a commercial she wrote involving doomed couples, seen as offensive due to the recent string of murders. Ally's boss, Crystal, orders her to work with famed designer Jay Simmons, whom Ally had encountered at a coffee shop earlier. Jay suggests they have dinner that night to gain inspiration, and Ally's best friend Monica helps her pick out an outfit. Ally and Jay meet at the restaurant, but the conversation gets heated when they question each other's status and backstory. Jay leaves, and Ally follows, kissing him as she sees her previous boyfriend approaching with his new girlfriend. From a distance, Heart Eyes watches. The two of them reconcile their differences and take a cab to Ally's apartment, where Jay helps her break in after she forgets her key, cutting his hand in the process. Ally helps tend to Jay's wound upstairs, only for Heart Eyes to attack them. He kills their cab driver and chases them, knocking Jay out in the process. Ally flees and ends up on a carousel before the police arrive. Detective Jeanette Shaw and her partner Hobbs arrest Jay for the murders due to evidence regarding a wedding ring engraved with the initials "J.S." at the winery where Heart Eyes murdered the first couple, though Jay claims his innocence. At the station, Shaw and Hobbs point out how Jay's initials match the one on the ring, and Shaw points out that he was in the same cities at the same time as the killer's previous attacks. Ally waits in the lobby with the desk clerk and meets David, who is working on the computers. David asks Ally out on a whim, but Ally declines due to her recent stress, and David leaves. Heart Eyes invades the station by deactivating the power and killing the clerk before moving in to attack Ally. Shaw confronts Heart Eyes who disappears while Hobbs is killed. Ally rescues Jay, and they flee to a drive-in movie theater, where Heart Eyes slaughters several movie-goers. They decide to confront the killer. In the scuffle, Jay manages to stab Heart Eyes, and they unmask him to reveal an unknown man. The two of them are tended to by an ambulance while Shaw arrives with a hurt arm. She offers Jay a ride home, and he accepts. At home, Ally realizes she loves Jay and goes to find him at the airport. However, she is unable to find him until Heart Eyes calls her, telling Ally that he’s holding Jay captive at a chapel. Ally arrives, and Heart Eyes unmasks himself as David, who reveals that the previous Heart Eyes was a copycat and fanboy named Eli. Shaw then reveals herself as another Heart Eyes copycat and David's wife. Both she and David have committed every murder as Heart Eyes, switching out the costume. Shaw, in particular, attacked them at the apartment, while David killed the cab driver and the couple at the winery, losing his ring. Their motivation is a kink for killing together for fun. They present Ally with the choice of killing herself or Jay, but she shoots Shaw instead, hitting Jay in the process. The two couples fight as Jay stabs David in the eye with his own arrow, resulting in David falling on candles where the wax burns him. Ally then pushes Shaw onto a statue of Saint Valentine, stabbing her in the neck with a metal straw, as it slowly decapitates her. At the same time, Jay shoots David with another arrow, finally ending his and Shaw's killing spree. One year later, Ally returns to med school and the couple attends a drive-in movie. Jay asks Ally to move in with him, but she instead proposes and he accepts. In a mid-credit scene, Ally receives a mysterious and sinister phone call, which is then revealed to be Monica pretending to be Heart Eyes, having photographed the proposal.

Cast

Olivia Holt as Ally McCabe Mason Gooding as Jay Simmons Gigi Zumbado as Monica, Ally's friend Michaela Watkins as Crystal Cane, Ally, Jay and Monica’s boss Devon Sawa as Det. Zeke Hobbs Jordana Brewster as Det. Jeanette Shaw Latham Gaines as Nico Chris Parker as Tommy Yoson An as David Shaw Josh Ruben as Drive-In Movie Patron

Production

The film is directed by Josh Ruben and produced by Spyglass Media Group. The script is written by Phillip Murphy, Michael Kennedy, and Christopher Landon. Filming took place in New Zealand in June 2024. In October, it was announced that Jay Wadley was composing the film's score.

Release

In June 2024, Republic Pictures acquired worldwide distribution rights outside the United States and Canada to the film. In September 2024, Sony Pictures acquired the North American distribution rights and released it on February 7, 2025.

Reception

= Box office

= In the United States and Canada, Heart Eyes was released alongside Love Hurts and was projected to gross $7–8 million from 3,102 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $3.7 million on its first day, including an estimated $1.1 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $8.3 million, finishing second behind holdover Dog Man. The film underperformed with couples, with only 40% of opening weekend attendees going with a spouse or date, on par with the previous weekend's opener Companion. The following weekend the film grossed $9.9 million, an increase of 19% noted as uncommon for horror films, which normally see steep drops in their second weekends.

= Critical response

= On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 141 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.30/10. The website's consensus reads: "A mixture of gory slasher and sweet rom-com that ingeniously nails both formulas, Heart Eyes serves up a bloody valentine that'll make the Heart skip a beat." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it a 68% overall positive score.

References

External links

Heart Eyes at IMDb