Movie Title: Heart Eyes
Release Date: February 7, 2025
Runtime: 97 minutes
Director: Josh Ruben
Screenplay Written By: Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy
Based On: Original screenplay
Is it a remake?: No
Main Cast:
- Olivia Holt
- Mason Gooding
- Gigi Zumbado
- Michaela Watkins
- Devon Sawa
- Jordana Brewster
Budget: Approximately $18 million
Box Office:
- Domestic: $30,415,738
- International: $2,713,361
- Worldwide: $33,129,099
Awards:
- No major competitive awards verified from the sources checked.
Core credits, release date, runtime, budget, box office, and distribution details cross-checked through IMDb, Box Office Mojo, Rotten Tomatoes, Wikipedia, and New Zealand Film Commission records.
Short Plot Summary:
For several years, the “Heart Eyes Killer” has targeted romantic couples on Valentine’s Day. In Seattle, coworkers Ally and Jay are mistaken for a couple and become the killer’s next targets. As they try to survive the night, their forced partnership mixes slasher danger with romantic-comedy tension. The film blends holiday horror, murder-mystery plotting, and self-aware rom-com tropes.
Key Quotes:
- Monica: [On the phone with Ally] Hey, Ally? Ally, listen to me: you deserve to be happy. You deserve to have someone love you for the beautiful, neurotic mess that you are. I mean, you can be so clueless sometimes; it’s one of the ten things I hate about you, honestly. You can’t let Jay go off to his best friend’s wedding and hook up with a bunch of bridesmaids and move to Notting Hill. No. This is love, momma. Some kind of… wonderful, crazy stupid love, actually.
- Jay Simmonds: These muscles weren’t made for violence; they were made for cuddling!
- Ally McCabe: [to a statue of Saint Valentine] Your day fucking sucks.
- Ally McCabe: Love hurts, bitch.
- Ally McCabe: My point is, it’s not real. And somehow, I landed a job that forces me to propagate a fantasy in order to sell blood diamonds harvested from third world slave labor, so please forgive me if I’m not swept away by your magical notions of romance.
Trivia
Director:
- Josh Ruben directed the film.
- The film is described by multiple listings as a romantic comedy slasher / holiday horror film, combining Valentine’s Day rom-com setup with masked-killer slasher structure.
- The screenplay was written by Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon, and Michael Kennedy.
- Christopher Landon also served as a producer, connecting the film to the modern self-aware horror-comedy space associated with his work on projects such as Happy Death Day and Freaky.
Cast / Casting:
- Olivia Holt plays Ally McCabe, a pitch designer.
- Mason Gooding plays Jay Simmonds, a freelance advertiser.
- Gigi Zumbado plays Monica, Ally’s friend.
- Michaela Watkins plays Crystal Cane, Ally, Jay, and Monica’s boss.
- Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster play detectives Zeke Hobbs and Jeanine Shaw.
Soundtrack / Score:
- Jay Wadley composed the music.
- Insufficient verified data on a major released soundtrack album or prominent licensed-song campaign from the sources checked.
Location:
- The story is set in Seattle, Washington.
- The film was shot entirely in Auckland, New Zealand, with Auckland doubling for Seattle.
- The New Zealand Film Commission notes that Auckland’s urban environments, waterfront areas, and green spaces were used to create a cohesive American city setting.
- Location reporting identifies Auckland as the production’s main filming base, with the city standing in for Seattle across the film.
Act 1:
- The premise establishes that the Heart Eyes Killer has been murdering couples on Valentine’s Day for several years.
- Ally and Jay are coworkers, not an actual romantic couple, which sets up the film’s central mistaken-couple hook.
- The Valentine’s Day setting is central to the killer’s pattern and the film’s genre mashup of rom-com and slasher conventions.
Act 2:
- Ally and Jay become targets after the killer mistakes them for a couple.
- The film uses the survival structure of a slasher while pushing the leads into romantic-comedy proximity and banter.
- Detectives Hobbs and Shaw investigate the killings, giving the story a police-procedural/mystery layer.
Act 3:
- Specific ending details are omitted here to avoid relying on recap sites and to preserve the reveal-driven slasher structure.
- The final act centers on the identity and threat of the Heart Eyes Killer, with Ally and Jay forced to survive the Valentine’s Day murder spree.
- Insufficient verified data for detailed third-act production trivia from primary or highly reliable sources.
Easter Eggs:
- The title and killer design build directly around the familiar “heart eyes” emoji/image, turning romantic visual shorthand into a horror icon.
- The marketing tagline “Romance is dead” summarizes the film’s genre joke: Valentine’s Day romance converted into slasher violence.
- The tagline “No couple is safe” reinforces the film’s killer rule and Valentine’s Day hook.
- The detectives’ names, Hobbs and Shaw, echo the title pairing from the Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw. This is an apparent pop-culture reference based on the character names; treat as interpretation unless confirmed by the filmmakers.
Misc:
- Heart Eyes was released theatrically in the United States on February 7, 2025.
- Box Office Mojo lists a domestic opening weekend of $8,305,156 from 3,102 theaters.
- The film grossed $30,415,738 domestically, $2,713,361 internationally, and $33,129,099 worldwide.
- IMDb and Box Office Mojo both list the production budget at approximately $18 million.
- Rotten Tomatoes lists the film as rated R, with a runtime of 1 hour 37 minutes, and categorizes it under holiday, horror, romance, and comedy.
Sources Cited:
- IMDb: Heart Eyes title and full credits pages.
- Wikipedia: Heart Eyes.
- Box Office Mojo: Heart Eyes title and release pages.
- Rotten Tomatoes: Heart Eyes.
- New Zealand Film Commission: Heart Eyes.
- Movie Insider: Heart Eyes.
