The dark, tense, combustible mood and atmosphere conveyed in the trailer for My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To, as well as its story of a family member in search of blood in behalf of another family member, reminds me favorably of Jorge Michel Grau's Somos lo que hay (2010), which was memorably refashioned by Jim Mickle into We Are What We Are (2013). All this alerts me: pay attention, this might be really good.
The premise for the new film, written and directed by shorts filmmaker Jonathan Cuartas as his feature debut, is as follows:
"Dwight (Patrick Fugit) prowls the streets after dark. He searches each night for the lonely and forlorn, looking for people who won't be missed. Dwight takes no joy in this, but he needs their blood. Without fresh human blood, his fragile young brother Thomas cannot survive. Each death takes a larger toll, the burden of his crimes weighing heavier each time, threatening to crack his spirit.
"But Thomas (Owen Campbell) and his sister Jessie (Ingrid Sophie Schram) are all the family Dwight has left, and as a fiercely private and close-knit family unit, they depend on him and the rituals they've learned in order to keep their secret. But while Dwight yearns for another life, Jessie needs them to stay together. And always the boy must feed."
An official selection of the previously cancelled 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, the film played Nightstreams 2020 and Celluloid Horrors 2020. It will have a special screening at this year's 2021 Tribeca Festival on June 12, ahead of its opening in theaters and VOD/Digital Platforms on June 25 via Dark Sky Films.
Soak in the trailer below.