Well, shut my mouth.

Just a few hours — I repeat, hours — after writing that Hollywood never releases a classic romantic movie on Valentine’s Day, I see a film that proves me wrong. It just happens to also be an ultraviolent slasher. Touché, Hollywood. You win this round.

Then again with a film as good as Josh Ruben’s “Heart Eyes,” everyone’s a winner. Ruben is the director of the brilliant 2021 horror comedy Werewolves Within, hands down the best movie ever adapted from a video game. It comes as no surprise that his follow-up would do the same thing for another underwhelming subgenre. “Heart Eyes” raises the bar for emoji movies, which sounds like faint praise since “The Emoji Movie” forgot to install a bar, but it’s still true.

For the last two years a serial killer in a mask that looks like the “heart eyes” emoji has...