It’s Feb 14th, what better day to release Heart Eyes, a new movie about a masked serial killer with glowing red heart eyes who terrorises unsuspecting couples on Valentine’s Day? They say romance is dead… “I call it a rom-com that gets hijacked by a horror movie,” says US actor Mason Gooding, who plays the co-lead Jay Simmons, alongside Olivia Holt’s character Ally – we’ll keep details to a minimum for this one. “A lot of the sentimentality of the movie calls on tropes present in the rom-com landscape subverted by splashes of horror,” Gooding continues, “I do feel like romance and horror, as media genres and media do marry each other quite well, no pun intended.”

From his teenage years, horror has always been there for Gooding. It began with the hella-freaky Silent Hill video game – “it’s my favourite and probably the reason I love horror as a genre” – and continued into cult and classic 90s movies; the actor has starred in two Scream movies – with another on the way – and cites the franchise’s Sidney Prescott [Neve Campbell] as the ‘godmother of the slasher.’

And his knowledge of the genre goes far deeper than his watchlists and film collection, exploring how horror evolves with the era it’s born into, echoing society’s wider fears and values. “There’s a brilliant video essay on YouTube by kaptainkristian where he talks about the existential dread and melancholia present in [the 90s], as the turn of the century was approaching,” Gooding tells us, diving into the context. “How horror went from a vastly external experience to one of interiority. In Heart Eyes, it feels like you can have both dynamics because you have that emotional investment – whether it’s the relationship itself or the relationship the two characters have with Heart Eyes as it relates to their growing sentiments towards each other. The way it deals with internalised thoughts becoming external and trauma manifesting as creatures is ultimately, I think, the most effective horror.” Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, if you see someone with hearts in their eyes… run!

Heart Eyes is out in cinemas now.