BA_Harrison

Let me preface this review by saying that I didn't choose to see Heart Eyes: I saw it as a 'secret screaming' and it wasn't the film that I had hoped for (I had my fingers crossed that it would be The Monkey). I'd seen the trailer for this Valentine's Day slasher and it looked about as generic and forgettable as could be, with a risible killer and a predictable set-up. The reality is that the film is even worse than the trailer suggested, the makers attempting to blend humour with the horror but failing badly - it's a Scream wannabe with none of Kevin Williamson's incisive wit or Wes Craven's directorial ingenuity.

The plot sees a maniac known as the Heart Eyes Killer (so called because of the really stupid looking mask he wears) targeting couples on Valentine's Day. Olivia Holt plays Ally McCabe, who works in the marketing department for a jewellery company; after a disastrous campaign, specialist Jay Simmonds (Mason Gooding) is drafted in to help. Ally and Jay are immediately attracted to each other, which in turn makes them targets of the killer. Cue lots of screaming, running, and gory murders, the horror diluted by the asinine comedy.

The 18 certificate is what convinced me to remain in my seat till the end, and the gruesome death scenes are about the only good thing about the film. But even though Heart Eyes is suitably bloody, particularly towards the end, it doesn't make up for the incredibly weak script and the feeling that we've seen this kind of thing done many times before, and a lot better.

And if you don't guess within minutes that Ally is going to use her metal straw as a weapon at the end, then you need to see more movies. Or stop watching them altogether.

2.5/10, rounded down to 2 for the lame gags.

Jenny Ladimoor (Elsa Zara) is engaged to Harry Audersen (Mario Guaita-Ausonia), for what is to be a marriage of convenience. Jenny isn't enamoured by mild-mannered Harry: she dreams of high adventure and hunky action men, like the mysterious, hooded, muscle-bound crimefighter The Phantom Athlete, whose exciting exploits are regularly reported in the local papers.

When Jenny's wealthy father gives her a valuable antique breast-plate for her birthday, she becomes the target of ruthless criminals who will do anything to get their hands on the treasure. Luckily for Jenny, the Phantom Athlete is always on the scene to rescue her from the villains.

The Phantom Athlete reminds me a lot of Santo, the heroic wrestler of many a Mexican movie, except that he wears a chainmail hood instead of a luchador mask. And like those Santo movies, I found this film rather tedious and not particularly exciting, the repetitive formula quickly becoming tiresome. It's the same thing over and over again - the crooks cooking up a scheme, only to be foiled by the Phantom - with a predictable ending in which the Phantom is unmasked, revealing him to be none other than Harry, much to the delight of Jenny, who finally has the brave hero she wanted.

A couple of old press cuttings and a handful of stills are nowhere near enough for anyone to adequately judge a film, and since this seems to be all the evidence of Life Without Soul's existence, any in-depth reviews of the film must be taken with a few sackfuls of salt.

According to Phil Hardy's Encyclopaedia of Horror, this first full-length feature of Frankenstein apparently featured an outstanding performance by Percy Standing as the creature, the actor convincingly conveying the embodiment of a man without a soul. A shame that we will never be able to judge for ourselves, unless someone discovers a copy hidden away in a vault somewhere (Thomas A. Edison's 1910 version of Frankenstein was considered lost until a nitrate print was discovered in the mid-'70s, so anything is possible I suppose).