My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To

My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell it To (2020) is a movie my wife and I recently watched on Prime. The storyline follows a brother and sister with a sick younger brother who needs to drink blood to survive. They'll go to extreme measures to find and extract the blood; meanwhile, the brother feels his world is too small and wants to expand his circumstances...

This movie is directed by Jonathan Cuartas in his directorial debut and stars Patrick Fugit (Gone Girl), Ingrid Sophie Schram (Phantom Thread), Owen Campbell (Super Dark Times) and Katie Preston (Vagina Town).

This is a very unique and well done movie. The characters and circumstances draw you in and Campbell does a fantastic job of being eccentric. His mannerisms were perfect and every time he drank blood I cringed a little bit. The cast really does a great job depicting the characters inner struggles with the circumstances. The action scenes in this are very good. The screwdriver scene was well done and you find yourself feeling worse and worse for Campbell the entire film. The ending was smart and I loved how the film concluded.

Overall this is a well put together picture that's worth your time. I would score this an 8/10 and strongly recommend it.

My fiancé and I watched this on a whim after watching the preview. We really feel that a lot of these negative reviews are coming from people who more appreciate the common horror tropes such as fast paced plots, over the top gore, and fast paced plot driven dialog.. Definitely a movie that doesn't spoon feed or shove plot down your throat. It makes you think and relies on the viewer putting themselves in the characters shoes, and in such is very subtle and artistic.

Major props to AAALLLLLLL of the actors/actresses. They did a great job while still being subtle and not over the top as with most major motion pictures these days. Owen Campbell was especially delightful in his ability to actually portray someone who is heart breakingly dependant on his family, displays a child like innocence... yet at the end... is simply a tragic character. Keep up the good work sir!! Shame on you all who rated this diamond in the rough low.

Also props to the director. Showing juuuust enough... but not so much as to be vulgar or obscene in any horror movie genre cliches. The cinematography/shots were very well done and the plot/writing was juuusssstttt right for the feel of the film and the subject matter.

Overall this was an excellent movie that was subtle and thoughtful, yet emotional and thought provoking.

Do yourself a favor... just watch it.

I love the title of this movie - it fits well with this ultra dark indie horror title about two siblings taking care of their vampire brother.

Somber and slow, the film takes it's time, never gearing up to a big climax, instead ending in a whimper.

So, viewers seem to either despise or love this offering. I come down somewhere in the middle. The idea here is interesting: a "realistic" family of siblings that have a special circumstance within their midst; and dealing with that circumstance becomes a practical and emotional burden that is increasingly intolerable for everyone.

This is a low budget offering. To that end, the acting is (mostly) suitable for a film that is more about rumination than explanation or action. The camera work is also suitable for a film that takes place (mostly) inside.

However, I also agree that pacing is a major issue here. The pregnant pauses, the controlled meter and inflection of the dialogue, the lingering camera shots - at times each of these can seem excessive. My other complaint was that, for a realistic-style movie, there were some real television-style cliches here (for example, two of the potential victims escape only to be found again under circumstances that can only exist on celluloid).

I think the director may have been aiming for something like "A Girl Walks Home Alone" or "Martin" or maybe even Herzog's 1979 "Nosferatu the Vampyre." It never quite gets up to that level; but if you enjoy a more psychological or emotional approach to the vampire genre, this might work for you.

Three thrifty siblings have a special need that forces them into a gruesome trade in society's cast-offs.

Downbeat drama of troubled co-dependency that kept me engaged all the way. There are many quiet scenes, with the characters sometimes barely responsive to each other, but directed and edited with expertise so that the whole thing flows, with help from excellent cinematography and score. Performances too are excellent, so a toast all round - a beaker of blood, my good man!

But it's a light-touch horror, and tending more to the survivalist genre, which I think is a peculiarly American phenomenon, one I don't really get. I prefer a horror to have a weird narrative that maps onto common struggles and fears, so that the extravagance leads to a hidden truth about our place in life. This is too straight a story, and even with its unanswered questions seems strangely plausible in the lonesome alienation of the mid-west.

Overall: Quality production, but not sure horror was the right way to go.