Siblings Dwight (Patrick Fugit, Treadstone, Outcast) and Jessie (Ingrid Sophie Schram) have been caring for their younger brother Thomas (Owen Campbell, The Americans, Boardwalk Empire), who suffers from some sort of vampirism. Thomas sleeps during the day and is awake at night. He is sensitive to the sunlight and needs a fresh supply of blood to drink in order to survive. Dwight and Jessie love their brother. They homeschool him, and have resorted to procuring the homeless, migrants and vagrants to help satisfy Thomas’ needs. However, the situation has taken a toll on Dwight and Jessie, both emotionally and physically. To make ends meet, Jessie works a soulless job as a waitress at a diner, while Dwight gets the even worse job of finding the next blood source, and pawning the clothing and other items from the previous victim at a local thrift store. While Jessie doesn’t want to give up on Thomas, and would maintain the status quo no matter what the cost, Dwight’s heart isn’t in it anymore. He’s overwhelmingly depressed and lonely, often seeking the company of a local prostitute Pam (Katie Preston), even if it’s just to get some human connection and talk to someone else for an hour. Countless times Dwight has thought about jumping in the car and just driving away from it all, and asking Pam to join him. However, he just can’t bring himself to abandon his family, no matter how dire and depressing their situation is. Meanwhile, Thomas has also grown weary and unsettled. When he hears the other teens laughing and playing outside, he just wants to be able to run out and greet them, but instead he is locked up inside with no friends to keep him company. So with conflict brewing and things coming to a head, it’s only time before this family starts to crumble.
While the film never uses the V word to describe Thomas’ illness, he is most certainly a vampire, though not who stalks and kills victims to suck their blood—he is often too weak or frail to even walk around the house, spending a lot of his time in his bedroom. Instead, it is Dwight and Jessie who are the ones doing the stalking and draining of the bodies, before burying them in the back yard. The viewer is never told how long Thomas has had this condition, how he got it, what happened to their parents, or how long Dwight and Jessie have been procuring blood for their sibling (they must be running out of room to bury the bodies by now!). My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To is not an action-packed sci-fi/vampire thriller, but rather a phycological drama about good people who have been forced to do bad things for love and family. Dwight and Jessie try to make the best of the situation, choosing victims they believe no one will miss, but it becomes more and more of a struggle for Dwight to reconcile his actions with his conscience, and so he starts to get sloppy. Also, despite these three siblings spending most of their time together, they are all extremely lonely and depressed.
If you’re going into My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To expecting a big bloody, sci-fi vampire spectacle, they you may be disappointed. While it certainly is bloody at times, it is not really a sci-fi or vampire movie, but rather a more low-key thriller/drama. The film is more methodically-paced, allowing the viewer to experience the emotions this family is going through, but never felt excessively slow. It does have a few more action-packed sequences as some of the would-be victims try to escape their captors. It is certainly not the feel-good movie of the year, but I found it to be an entertaining, haunting and interesting take on the genre, but with more of a dysfunctional family drama focus to it, and vampirism used more as a side note—Thomas could have been suffering any debilitating illness that caused him to remain indoors, and his siblings forced to resort to bad things to get the resources to help him.
The film is presented on Blu-ray in 4:3 Full Frame format, which was surprising at first as everything is widescreen these days, but I quickly got used to it and didn’t even notice after a few minutes into the film. The picture is quite clean and detailed, and really showcases the rundown interior of the family’s home. It feels like this house hasn’t been updated since the 1970s, and there’s this yellowy tone to everything. The audio track provides clear dialogue and showcases the film’s soundtrack (some of which includes some less than stellar karoke), but some of the more nuanced sounds I didn’t find that noticable—when Thomas hears the children playing outside, I saw it mentioned in the subtitles but couldn’t quite hear it myself. The Blu-ray comes packed in a standard HD keepcase without a slipcover or a digital copy. There is no bonus material included, except for the film’s trailer.
What’s Included:
Film: (1:29:10)
- 1080p / Full Frame 1.33:1
- Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English 2.0 PCM Lossless
- Subtitles: English SDH
Extras:
- Trailer (1:52)
Final Thoughts:
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To is a dark thriller about a pair of siblings who resort to doing some horrible things to help their ill younger brother, and the physical and emotional toll this has on them. While there is vampirism at the center of the story, this is far from an action-packed sci-fi/fantasy film, and much more of a grounded thriller. The performances are strong, and the Blu-ray presentation solid. The film is worth checking out for folks interested in a moody, atmospheric dysfunctional family thriller.
