Director on Attacking Bridget Jones or Love Actually

“Heart Eyes” is a fascinating blend of films, mixing a rom-com with a slasher, with a pinch of broad laughs. Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding star as two co-workers who are mistaken for lovers by a serial killer who only strikes on Valentine’s Day. The film is helmed by director Josh Ruben, who cut his teeth making short-form content at CollegeHumor before directing two indie comedy-horror films with passionate fanbases: 2020’s “Scare Me” and 2021’s “Werewolves Within.” Ruben spoke to Variety about balancing the right tone between horror and comedy, the secrets to developing a great rom-com and what “Heart Eyes” sequel ideas could look like.

This is the biggest film you’ve directed in terms of locations, scores of extras, etc. Did it feel like a completely different animal or did it have a lot of DNA In common with your indie films?

It’s always the same thing, just with more people and more toys. It could be unwieldy in its heft: The more people, the bigger the ship, the harder it is to turn. Because I started in Internet video, short form, did commercials and have been doing this thing for a long time, it felt the same. I’m thankful that they gave me a long rope. I had a lot of freedom. No one ever asked me to shoot something at a certain angle. I shot my coverage. I took probably more options sometimes than I needed, but I really got to do my thing, which was incredible. My producer, Greg Gilreath, who’s half of Divide/Conquer, the guys behind “M3GAN,” said, “It’s not always like this, so enjoy.”

What were some of the tricks you used to make the rom-com scenes feel authentic, before switching gears suddenly to slasher territory?

You have to have two cast members who have legit chemistry, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan-style. I didn’t know that Mason and Olivia would have the kind of chemistry they did. And we super lucked out with an equally important chemistry in Gigi Zumbado and Olivia. These friends have to have love for one another as well, you have to feel that despite the humor of it all. So you start with the cast. You make sure that they always play terror for real and never get caught trying to be funny. That’s the north star rule, so that way the thing doesn’t fall. You really care about these people because they’re real people, all things considered, despite how extraordinary things get.

And then your score and your production design. You just talk to your team, and you say, “Look, there was blue moonlight in ‘Jaws’ and ‘Get Out.’ There’s also blue moonlight in ‘Sleepless in Seattle.’” There was the same hue of blue moonlight in “[Friday the 13th Part VI:] Jason Lives,” which is a big north star horror reference for this film. So you have a color palette where you can allow that means of capturing night, which the film mostly takes place at night, and we’re also roping in all of the aesthetics of a great Valentine’s Day film, from the pink and red hues of the background to homaging films I feel nostalgic about, like “Defending Your Life” and “Big,” with all of its big pink backlit windows in the restaurant scene.

How were you able to figure out how much you could push the humor without being distracting from the other genre moments you had?

As long as your lead character is in it, emotionally, you can do just about anything. That’s why “The Walking Dead” lasted as long as it did as a TV series. You care about these characters, and the zombies are the icing on the cake. In all of these rom-coms, like “Sleepless in Seattle” for instance, it was as tragic as it is sweet as it is heartbreaking as it is funny. And yet there is the hysterical comedic flourishes of Bill Pullman’s stuffy nose and Tom Hanks’ girlfriend, who he dates for a short time with that obnoxious cackle. Even in “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” as ridiculous as the comedy gets, if you’re with Julia Roberts, you’re good. That’s how it all worked.

While balancing the romance and the horror, did you find similarities between the two genres that you might not have seen before?

I didn’t think about it. I didn’t clock it. I suppose, in retrospect, you have to treat them quite differently. Actually, you need the quiet in the tender moments, and the more quiet and lulled into complacency we are, the more primed we are for a jump scare and abject terror. I suppose there are some similarities, but I felt them very differently. It was all about treating the tender stuff tenderly and treating the horror for real. This whole movie is one big moment where you know two people are about to kiss, but it’s constantly subverted by the Wes Craven machete through the center.

Regarding the gore in this movie: How were you able to find the line where you gross people out without luxuriating in it too much?

Probably angles, shots and context. I had a great editor in Brett W. Bachman. There’s a sequence in this film that’s arguably the goriest, and there’s another five minutes of that sequence. I could have kept cutting back and forth, and showed more sinew snapping and more blood dropping to the floor. I did love — almost to the darkly comedic level — staying in that, but at some point, it was too excruciating for people and I don’t want to ice anybody out. But I ultimately appreciate that folks are excited for a film that doesn’t pull punches, and is a little bit more accessible. I do not recommend showing this to a 12-year-old who likes horror, but there are going to be 12-year-olds who see it — as I was once a 7-year-old who watched “Jason Lives.” They will recover from this as I certainly did. It may leave them with some crazy imagery in their brain, but come on, grow up. But it will be like “Monster Squad” was for me: A film you can watch again and again. Those are the types of movies I want to make. I can’t watch much torture porn, so I’m always calibrating my own barometer for that stuff.

Could you see yourself directing a “Heart Eyes” sequel?

I’ll put it this way: You could replicate the structure of any great rom-com, from “His Girl Friday” to “Defending Your Life,” and you could drop Heart Eyes into the center of that story, and have him flash and slash about. That’s what’s exciting about this: There’s an opportunity that we could have whoever the filmmaker was — certainly, I’d be interested — genuinely trying to create or replicate that rom-com, or the feeling of a “Bridget Jones” or “Love Actually” or what have you, but actually have those people terrified by this psychopathic killer. That’s really, really exciting, because what it means is it has a potential for a long life. Then the trick becomes: How can we balance all of the fun new toys and gore with a story about two people falling in love, or even on the outs, that you actually care about emotionally? That’s the real success of this film. If it’s landing with anyone, it’s landing because these two have chemistry, and really the whole ensemble does. That’s going to be the trick. If you don’t have that, I think you’re dead in the water.

Are there any other genres that you daydream about throwing a serial killer into to shake things up?

I would love to helm a musical at some point. I don’t know if anyone outside of “Sweeney Todd” has done something that has Wes Craven brutality to it, but it might be interesting without it being operatic. I don’t know if it’s entirely appropriate, but there’s a fantastical itch that I want to scratch. It isn’t necessarily horror, but plays in a world that was the fantasy I grew up watching, that put kids in danger, that was romantic, that was scary, that was brutal and that was also just fun. I’d like to make something that transportive. So who knows? I don’t know about the slasher side of it, but I’m excited about any slasher film that has them pursuing characters we give a shit about.