Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Heart Eyes (2025)
Although Heart Eyes’ twist ending might leave viewers assuming otherwise, the slasher movie didn’t always cross over with the murder mystery genre. Heart Eyes’ twist ending is a fun, clever way to wrap up the movie’s subversive mix of unconventional rom-com and bloody slasher horror. Like screenwriter Christopher Landon’s earlier efforts Happy Death Day and Freaky, Heart Eyes takes elements of the slasher sub-genre and mixes them with warm rom-com tropes to create a genre hybrid that proves surprisingly appealing.
However, Heart Eyes’ killer reveals, and the fact that the killer’s identity is hidden in the first place, is also indicative of a major shift in the slasher sub-genre. Until the ‘90s slasher revival, most slasher movies didn’t hide the identity of their killers. To see why this was the case and why it changed, readers need to go back through the history of the slasher sub-genre, its recent changes, and the ways that another, semi-related genre has often intersected with slasher movies.
Heart Eyes’ Twist Ending Makes The 2025 Hit Another Slasher Murder Mystery
Heart Eyes’ Ending Reveals The Identity Of Its Masked Killer
Although most slasher movies are now also murder mysteries, this wasn't always the case. If Heart Eyes 2 happens, viewers can be sure that the original movie’s trio of killers will not return for the sequel. The killers are unmasked, defeated, and left definitively dead by the time the slasher movie’s credits roll, but this would have been an unusual, surprising twist in an '80s slasher. The slasher movie has changed a lot in the last few decades, as evidenced by the now-popular formula that Heart Eyes uses.
Heart Eyes' characters are a fun fusion of romcom tropes and horror movie archetypes, setting up a talented cast to hop between the genres.
The slasher sub-genre has its roots in boundary-pushing psychological horror movies like Psycho and Peeping Tom (both 1960), and Italian Giallo movies. Although the former centered on the perspectives of murderous protagonists, the latter were more conventional murder mysteries. In Psycho and Peeping Tom, the killer’s perspective is central to the movie’s story whereas, in most Giallo movies, the killer’s identity is kept secret until the ending. Director Bob Clark’s seminal early slasher Black Christmas borrowed this approach, with the festive horror movie playing out like a yuletide whodunit.
Throughout the ‘80s, horror was dominated by slasher franchises and most of these series put the identity of their killers front and center.
However, director John Carpenter’s legendary slasher movie Halloween never hid its killer, and most of the movies that tried to ape its success took the same approach. Although director Josh Ruben's Heart Eyes makes uncovering the identity of its masked killer central to the slasher movie’s plot, this is still a relatively recent development for the genre. Throughout the ‘80s, horror was dominated by slasher franchises and all the most lucrative and prolific of these series put the identity of their killers front and center.
Heart Eyes Continues A Slasher Genre Trend Started In The ‘90s
Scream And I Know What You Did Last Summer Made Whodunit Slashers Huge
Technically, 1980’s original Friday the 13th was a Giallo-style murder mystery where the killer was only revealed in the ending. However, the rest of the franchise’s sequels were all traditional slashers. In fact, all the major slasher franchises of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, including Halloween, Nightmare On Elm Street, Child’s Play, Leprechaun, and Candyman made the identity of their killers central to their marketing. Not only were these movies not murder mysteries, but they were actively putting their villains front and center in their posters, trailers, and promos.
Scream’s success resulted in new slasher movies hiding the identity of their villains.
1996’s Scream changed this, as screenwriter Kevin Williamson's savvy, self-parodic slasher movie kept the killer’s identity a secret until the finale. Scream’s success, which was shared by 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer (also written by Williamson), resulted in new slasher movies hiding the identity of their villains. Soon, the Scream sequels and copycats like Urban Legend, Cherry Falls, and Valentine were all blending slasher movie setups with murder mystery plot lines, resulting in movies that played out like a mix of Agatha Christie and Jason Voorhees.
Heart Eyes’ Writer Helped Revive The Murder Mystery Slasher
Christopher Landon Also Penned 2017’s Happy Death Day
Although Heart Eyes’ positive reviews prove that the slasher movie is doing great in 2025, it is worth noting that the ‘90s slasher revival did die out after only a few years. Slashers went back to reliable icons like Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and Jason Voorhees throughout the ‘00s, meaning the '90s trend of murder mystery slashers where the killer was kept a mystery was over. However, Happy Death Day arrived in cinemas in 2017 and took home a phenomenal box office haul of $125 million despite costing only $5 million.
As such, viewers soon got a deluge of whodunit slashers as the horror sub-genre proved profitable once again. Happy Death Day 2 U, There’s Someone Inside Your House, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Thanksgiving, Totally Killer, Scream 2022, Scream VI, It’s A Wonderful Knife, and Heart Eyes, all of which are murder mystery slasher hybrids, were released in the years that followed. Even the cast of Heart Eyes was pulled from these successful earlier whodunit slashers, with Olivia Holt starring in Totally Killer and Mason Gooding playing a supporting role in Scream 2022 and Scream VI.
Heart Eyes’ Critical Success Proves The Slasher Murder Mystery Formula Works
The Scream Series Enjoyed Critical Acclaim Thanks To Blending Slashers And Whodunits
Although the above rundown proves that there have been plenty of slasher murder mysteries clogging up multiplexes in recent years, it is tough to complain about this embarrassment of riches when the trend works so well. Slasher movies and murder mysteries make a perfect combination, as the two sub-genres complement each other’s weak spots. In recent decades, murder mysteries have become associated with cozy comedic crime movies thanks to the Knives Out franchise, Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot adaptations, and Netflix’s upcoming Richard Osman adaptation The Thursday Murder Club.
Slasher movie tropes give the murder mystery format a darker, grislier edge for horror viewers.
As such, slasher movie tropes give the murder mystery format a darker, grislier edge for horror viewers. That said, there is a reason that slasher movies gained an ignominious reputation throughout the ‘80s for being little more than mindless gore fests. Although this characterization isn’t a fair assessment of every Golden Age slasher, there are plenty of slasher movies from the period that focus on gruesome killings and little else. A murder mystery plot gives viewers something more to get intellectually and emotionally invested in between the killings.
Thus, murder mysteries and slashers have proven to be a match made in heaven. Although some hit slashers like the Terrifier movies and 2024’s In A Violent Nature keep the old-fashioned straightforward slasher formula alive, genre hybrids like Heart Eyes mean that slashers may well become synonymous with murder mysteries for a new generation.
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