A Constant Visual Feast

Josh Ruben, more than most other directors in the horror space today, has a deft hand for weaving comedy into scary hijinks. A Valentine’s rom-com-slasher, on paper, didn’t really interest me that much, until I saw Ruben’s name attached; that got my engine a-revving. I think he understands people on a level where finding humor in extraordinary situations and gruesome encounters is like second nature to him.

But Heart Eyes‘ value, to me, is accidental, because I am sure Ruben did not intend this movie to convey a message about conservatism in slasher cinema on any subtextual level. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, sex in a slasher movie meant death; and this became codified as a trope of the sub-genre, married with the defining conservatism of the political moment. We’re suffering through extreme conservatism run amok at this very moment. It tracks that a slasher should arrive in theaters whose killer specifically targets couples, not always when they’re doing the horizontal tango, but when they’re clearly in a relationship where that’s something that they do entertain.

My full breakdown of this very good movie and very surprising trope is over at The Daily Beast.