kindertrauma

Month: February 2025

Heart Eyes

Posted on By unkle lancifer

A part of me wishes that the entire planet blew up while I was watching HEART EYES to insure that I died happy and doing what I loved most. It’s no secret I love slasher movies and there’s a special fluffy space in my heart for a holiday slasher that I can count on to view annually. If said movie also sports likable characters, grisly kills, a morbid sense of humor and clear genuine respect for its early eighties predecessors then I’m in the cloud nine zone. Director Josh Rubin (WEREWOLVES WITHIN)’s HEART EYES gets exactly everything right in my book. It’s tons of fun, laugh out loud funny and delightfully vicious. It moves at a perpetual gallop, has a plethora of twists and turns and glides by dispensing impressive quantities of both mirth and mayhem. It also works very well as a frothy rom-com with both Olivia Holt (TOTALLY KILLER) and Mason Gooding (SCREAMS 5&6) delivering charming, pitch-perfect performances. I’m telling you, I actually missed this movie when it was over. I hated to say goodbye. Returning to the drudgery of reality was dreadful so I stopped at a bar on the way home just to ease my entertainment withdrawal.

An opening news footage montage (shades of MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D (2009) ) informs that the “Heart Eye Killer” (aka “HEK”) has been terrorizing cities (including Philly, yay) for the last couple years on Valentines Day. The masked murderer with literal heart eyes that glow has a penchant for singling out couples in love. Currently he seems to have settled on Seattle for his hunting grounds. Enter Ally (Holt, adorable) a recently dumped quip-ready misanthrope who works in advertising and is forced by her boss Crystal (scene stealing Michaela Watkins) to teem up with designer Jay Simmons (Gooding, also adorable) to brainstorm a more positive angle for selling their product. Ally and Jay butt heads as expected but when the grousing non-couple bump into Ally’s ex boyfriend, she kisses Jay passionately in order to save face. Unfortunately, this action is viewed by you guessed it, ol’ Heart Eyes and soon the bickering duo are number one in the maniac’s crosshairs. Things get further complicated when a couple of police officers named Hobbs and Shaw (Devon Sawa and Jordan Brewster, both outstanding and aging like fine wine) begin to suspect that Jay is actually the killer!

HEART EYES was written by Phillip Murphy with I’m thinking a strong assist from comedy-horror veterans Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy (FREAKY, IT’S A WONDERFUL KNIFE, HAPPY DEATH DAY et al). Obviously, comedy is subjective so I can’t promise everyone will find this movie as hilarious as I did (I sometimes fear I’m living in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and I’m the last soul with a sense of humor) but it hit yours truly directly on the funny bone and made me laugh out loud frequently. And I have to say, the chemistry between the two leads is exceptional. Honestly, I barely noticed Gooding in the SCREAM flicks but he potently charms here and Holt is wonderfully wry and effervescent. Impressively, the rom-com undercurrent bubbles like champagne without flattening the savagery of the slasher elements in any way; it’s like they’re perfectly married. As far as I’m concerned, HEART EYES is a keeper across the board. It skillfully fulfills its duty as a body count flick with memorably sadistic kills while delivering some of the most engaging characters I’ve encountered in a while (Can’t add more on that front without spoiling). If you dig slashers, horror or just pure escapism I highly recommend you see this gem in theaters. It filled my heart fully and is there any better recommendation than the fact that this devout shut-in cheapskate plans to see it again tomorrow?

Traumafession:: Unk on The Hills Have Eyes ('77)

Posted on By unkle lancifer

After seventeen plus years you’d think I would have relayed all of my childhood kindertraumas by now but it seems there’s always yet another gremlin hiding under the bed. Once upon a time, in the land of wood paneling and shag carpet the color of guacamole, the standard family had a giant crate sized TV with an extendable antennae that when fiddled with precisely offered there major networks, one mostly boring public channel and most importantly, around three local UHF stations (there was also likely a scrambled porn station but we won’t get into that here). Having moved about the country with my family a bit I feel I can say from experience that Philadelphia had exceptional UHF channels that I’ll always be indebted to in the the form of channels 17, 29 and perhaps particularly, 48. These channels for the most part showed cartoons during the day, sitcom repeats during the dinner hour, dramas and detective shows in the evening and then late night became a wild free-for-all of thrillers , science fiction and horror. This is how I first came across horror master Wes Craven’s sophomore effort THE HILLS HAVE EYES. How could anyone turn the channel on a title like that?

THE HILLS HAVE EYES as I’m sure you all well know, involves a nice normal family named the Carters (which includes genre queen Dee Wallace) who along with their two dogs (Beauty & Beast) are traveling with an awesome towed trailer through the Nevada desert to vacation in San Diego. They foolishly decide to take advice from an obviously loony geezer and take a more “scenic” route to their destination and find themselves stranded and hunted down by a terrifying counterpart clan of cannibalistic savages the scariest of whom is named Pluto (the great Michael Berryman). The two groups battle it out for survival and dominance and we’re left wondering just how thin the line between the so-called civilized and the uncivilized actually is. One thing is left crystal clear, if the Carters wish to have any chance of living, they'll have to fight on the same feral level as their foes.

As a kid, I found so much relatable within this mesmerizing movie, in fact, it still resembles a vague memory of my youth. All of the earthy colors, the familiar family dynamics, the evergreen awesome seventies attire, the covet worthy vehicle, the way it all mirrored so many popular fairy tales and the fact that canines played major roles as valued family members, all appealed to me. Long before Freddy Krueger was even a mere glint in his father Wes’ eye, lumbering, giant, bald headed, sunken-eyed Pluto stalked my nightmares. As much a this movie freaked me out to my core (especially when it involves a kidnapped baby threatened to be cooked and eaten by a witch equivalent) it also thrilled me to no end. Much like RACE WITH THE DEVIL (’75) another road movie involving bad decisions and comfy means of transport, it was always an adrenaline rush to see it listed in the TV GUIDE and I was lucky enough to catch it multiple times. I’m in agreement with anyone who points out that the 2006 remake is superior (how often does that happen) but HILLS ('77) will always have a special place in my horror loving heart.