The heart is a lonely hunter in Colombian-American Jonathan Cuartas’ new film about two siblings, Jessie (Ingrid Schram) and Dwight (Patrick Fugit), who stalk, kill and spill the blood of unassuming and easily forgotten victims to feed their younger vampiric brother, Thomas—expertly played by Owen Campbell. Much has been made of the biblical lengths that a family will go to survive, which makes My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To an especially pertinent allegory during the dark days of a pandemic when the pallor of death and disease has swept across the world. In the canon of vampire films, this one belongs at the top of the most eerie and brilliantly crafted, with an insouciant blackness that continually makes these characters with a predominantly blood-based diet so fascinating. Like F. W. Murnau’s iconic 1922 silent film, Nosferatu (released at the tail end of another deadly pandemic), or Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish classic, Let the Right One In (2008), and Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To is an instant cult gem that seethes with uncanny pathos, despite the unrelenting physical and psychological violence. The film’s pacing, while creeping at times, like a slow penumbra, makes for a vivid and gripping filmic experience, and each scene is cast in a domestic, near-Gothic painterly glow, thanks to cinematographer Michael Cuartas (the director’s brother).
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To opens today in theaters and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms.