Decision to Leave (2022)

Originally published in Wildcat Weekly on March 28, 2025

I used to buy a lot of Blu-rays. Streaming rendered my movie shelves somewhat obsolete, but I still purchase Blu-rays for certain films when they meet specific criteria. One such criterion is whether I get so engrossed in the movie that I lose track of my surroundings.

It suffices to say: I own Decision to Leave on Blu-Ray.

Describing even the genre of Decision to Leave challenges me. One website called it a “neo-noir romantic thriller”; another labeled it a “Hitcockian drama”. Both are probably right, but neither nails this haunting, twist-filled tale of crime, infatuation, and obligation.

Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) is a severe police captain investigating a governmental official who died on a mountain, but he’s immediately smitten with Seo-rae (Tang Wei), the deceased’s wife. Sweeping the optics of falling for a recently widowed woman aside—a big ask already—there’s a bigger problem: Hae-joon’s married, and Seo-rae is the chief suspect in what he suspects was a murder.

What ensues is a cat-and-mouse game between the two…except the cat’s obsessed with the mouse, and the mouse knows it. Huge questions fly freely—about Seo-Rae’s motives and origins, about Hae-moon’s insomnia and loyalties—and all the time, these two draw closer, pulled together by something that neither can enunciate but both feel potently.

I’ve watched Decision to Leave three times, and I gasp and tear up at the same spots on every viewing. Park Chan-wook’s film offers the juiciest of dramas, rich with misdirection and revelation, but also a ribbon of tragedy that coats the whole thing in a vivid blue-gray. The camerawork fascinates me, with surveillancy zooms that ratchet up the tension sprinkled between sharp, stylish pans, every decision made to heighten the edgy paranoia floating beneath the fatalistic will-they-or-won’t-they surface. It’s a film where you understand everything that happened but sit stunned through the credits, puzzling the thing out nonetheless. I’m never on any character’s side during this movie nor contemplating any sort of theme—I’m tangled in the same web as our characters, munching popcorn while they eye one another both warily and seductively.

Decision to Leave is catnip for Hitchcock fans with modern palates, but it also rocks for police procedural aficionados who like it when one delivers something a little deeper. Personally, I relish the meticulously crafted suspense that grips me on even a rewatch, leaving me spellbound by the gorgeous dancing trainwreck playing out on screen.

Decision to Leave streams for free on MUBI, but you can rent it on all the major platforms.

 

Heart Eyes (2025)

Originally intended to be published in Wildcat Weekly on March 14, 2025 but never was!

Heart Eyes is simultaneously a slasher horror film and a romantic comedy. That’s not a joke. Imagine Scream or Halloween mixed with Sleepless in Seattle or You’ve Got Mail, and you’ve got the gist. It’s funny, it’s bloody, and it’s full of twists, but it’s also earnest and sweet. Like Happy Death Day before it, Heart Eyes walks the line between horror and comedy without stumbling once. 

It’s Valentine’s Day in Seattle. Ally (Olivia Holt) works in advertising, but her latest campaign bombs, so her company hires Jay (Mason Gooding) to clean up the mess. Meanwhile, a serial killer nicknamed Heart Eyes, who preys on couples every February, appears in town to begin another spree. When Ally and Jay meet for dinner to discuss work, Ally resents him and resists his charms…until her ex-boyfriend appears, leading to a kiss that catches Heart Eyes’ attention. Soon, Ally and Jay are on the run, stalked by a seemingly supernatural killer while also negotiating the magnetic pull between them. 

Weird though the genre mash-up is, I’m convinced Heart Eyes only works because of that mash-up. Neither the killer story nor the rom-com is especially interesting on its own. We’ve seen inventive kills at drive-in theaters before; we’ve smiled as enemies warm to each other on a steady trajectory toward one another’s arms. If Heart Eyes were either of those things alone, there’d be nothing to see here. 

Instead, familiar story beats weave through one another to create something fresh. The killer forces Ally and Jay together, revealing strengths and idiosyncrasies that soften their rivalry; that growing chemistry then ratchets up the stakes with Heart Eyes because each slash threatens their newfound affection. And across a succinct 97-minute film, these two stories make every minute engaging—there’s no time to drag when a killer forces the couple to race between set pieces, never lingering in any one scene, setting, or conversation.

I realize that Heart Eyes won’t win every viewer’s affection. By its very nature, many will find it off-putting: squeamish viewers may struggle with the gore while horror buffs might resent Ally and Jay batting eyes between kills. But I found Heart Eyes winning in every facet. Holt and Gooding deliver believable chemistry while trading barbs, the killer feels monstrous and imposing even while outsmarted by our central couple, and against all odds, the unlikely genre swirl satisfies both my horror and rom-com proclivities. 

Marrying I Know What You Did Last Summer with When Harry Met Sally sounds like a disaster, but Heart Eyes kills with both parts.