Heart Eyes director used Jason Lives as his guide while making his horror comedy slasher

The Valentine’s Day-set horror romantic comedy Heart Eyes, the latest film from Werewolves Within and Scare Me director Josh Ruben is now in theatres (you can read our 7/10 review HERE and watch our interviews with cast members at THIS LINK), and during an interview with our friends at Bloody Disgusting, Ruben revealed that he used writer/director Tom McLoughlin’s 1986 classic Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI as his guide when figuring out how to balance horror and comedy in his own slasher movie.

Heart Eyes has the following synopsis: When the Heart Eyes Killer strikes Seattle, a pair of co-workers pulling overtime on Valentine’s Day are mistaken for a couple by the elusive couple-hunting killer. Now they must spend the most romantic night of the year running for their lives. Ruben previously provided the following statement: “My love of horror is rivaled only by my love of romantic comedies. I’m excited as hell to mount my most challenging genre bender to date: a brutal slasher in a nostalgic rom-com universe.“ Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy, a duo that had previously worked together on the body swap slasher Freaky and the time travel slasher Time Cut, wrote the screenplay with Phillip Murphy (The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard).

Olivia Holt of Totally Killer and Mason Gooding from the two most recent Scream movies star alongside Jordana Brewster (The Fast and the Furious), Devon Sawa (Final Destination), and Gigi Zumbado (The Price We Pay). Stuntman Alex McCall plays the titular slasher.

Heart Eyes is set up at Spyglass, and Republic Pictures has picked up distribution rights to the film outside of the U.S. and Canada. Landon is producing the film with Divide/Conquer’s Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks. Spyglass’ Gary Barber and Chris Stone serve as executive producers with Murphy and Mel Turner. The film has been rated R for strong violence and gore, language and some sexual content.

Ruben told Bloody Disgusting, “My gold standard, my north star, was Tommy McLoughlin’s Jason Lives. That film is as brutal as it is silly as it is fun, and that was the white whale. Then everything after that was searching within myself, the kid that loved rom-coms, like Sleepless in Seattle, which is as funny and sweet as it is heartbreaking, super well acted but also silly, etc. Also, movies like Defending Your Life and Big and so on and so forth.”

Talking about the performance of the film’s killer, Ruben added, “I wanted to see what our stunt performer, Alex McCall, he’s phenomenal, brought to it without instructing Alex to do anything specifically. I did tell him he had to watch Jason Lives. I wanted to start there and say, ‘Alex, just watch Jason Lives, and let me just see what you do.’ Then I would tweak it. I wanted to get the head cock because they always do the head cock, you know, and that just feels super iconic to me. I always pictured (Halloween‘s) Nick Castle, or really any moment in H20 where you get to see Michael do his famous move. But the most original you can make it is allowing an individual to come in and put their stamp on it. Then I shape that if I need to. The only thing I would instruct Alex to do was sharpen certain movements or keep sensuality in mind because Heart Eyes is kind of an erotic character, in a way. We talked a little bit about Pinhead, etc. But I needed them to bring their own originality to it, and then, from then on, anything that bumped me as the director, ‘No, that’s too much, or it’s too little, or it’s not enough.’ There’s very little you have to do in a mask like that to be effective.”

As for the lighting – Jason Lives was a source of inspiration in that department, too! “I wanted blue moonlight from the beginning. I’m a huge blue moonlight fan. I love my Joe Dante. I love Jaws, I love Get Out. And I also love anything Steven Spielberg that used to freak me out. I wanted to bring blue moonlight into the fray because rom-coms of yesteryear also had blue moonlight that usually came in through raked blinds. You look at Jason Lives, and there’s the same lighting/gaffing effect, shaping the room, so blue moonlight was where we started. Then you bring in the colors of a Valentine’s Day movie to make it feel like you’re watching a rom-com that then gets, you know, Wes Craven.” I’m totally with him on the love for blue moonlight lighting. We need more blue moonlight in modern movies, especially most movies these days are too damn dark.

More quotes from Ruben can be found at the Bloody Disgusting link.

Friday the 13th is my favorite franchise and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI is one of my favorite entries in that franchise (and it also happens to be the movie that got me into horror in the first place), so I’m very glad to hear that Jason Lives was such a great source of inspiration for Ruben while he was making Heart Eyes.

Will you be catching the Jason Lives-inspired Heart Eyes on the big screen? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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