Adult siblings Dwight and Jessie take care of their sick, teenaged brother Thomas in a house on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. Thomas needs fresh blood to survive and depends on his brother and sister to provide it for him.

Over time, Thomas's affliction traps all three of them in an endless cycle of murder and suffocating loneliness. They all want to be someplace else. They all want companionship and love, but duty to the family prevents them from leaving.

As a horror movie, the film has no jump scares or creepy monsters. People looking for bared fangs and disemboweled bodies probably won't like this film.

As a metaphor for caring for a dying family member, however, the film underscores a terrifying reality and culturally unacknowledged reality. The efforts made to keep a terminally ill loved one alive crush the hopes and dreams of the caretaker. Each day spent in the arms of death with the dying is a day away from life. The caretaker gives up his life for the person who is dying, until the dying person dies.

The hardest part of this reality is that caretaking is done out of love. It typically isn't paid labor, but in fact drains the pocketbook. The heart of the dying person can't beat without the caretaker, and every beat costs the caretaker a beat of his own. In this situation, the afflicted feels like a burden and can't die fast enough. The caretaker is overwhelmed with guilt for wanting him to.

Jonathan Cuartas, the film maker, does a brilliant job of reinforcing the terror with the sets. When the characters are outside in the daylight, beautiful Utah is green and bursting with life. When the characters are inside the house, it is dark, oppressive and suffocating. It's always Christmas inside the house, but we don't know whether the tree is supposed to be comforting or someone could not bring himself to take it down. The only music and sound comes from an organ, which no one knows how to play.

There's also a strong subtext here about trying to escape the weight of the LDS Church in Utah, which is brought home when Dwight refuses to kill a young blond boy after murdering drifters and immigrants. And, when Dwight stands at the Great Salt Lake with all his freedom, the look on his face says he doesn't know what to do with it.

Anyway, I liked the film.

I really liked this movie, but I'll be honest in saying that I believe it is in dire need of a stronger climax. The climax kind of fizzled out... it's not that it's bad, I realize what they were going for... it's just not really strong enough in my opinion. Still, this unusual film kept me pretty captivated with great acting and beautiful cinematography.

The cinematography is definitely the strongest thing going for this movie in my opinion. The scenes in nature are amazing. The choice of lenses are fantastic. Was this shot in film rather than digital? It sure seemed like it... It's a great looking movie with a really great color palette. The set design was minimal but the locations and buildings were chosen very wisely. It just looked great.

I also found the acting to be top notch. It has to be when dealing with this kind of story where suspending your disbelief is a MUST if you're going to enjoy it. The Spanish speaking immigrant was really fantastic. That guy truly seemed as scared as he should be and have an awesome performance in my opinion.

I found the plot to be very metaphorical. And even though the ending wasn't strong enough to my liking, I definitely felt what the director and writer wanted me to feel with this film's conclusion... the freedom that comes with the having survived what you always knew to be inevitable... and feared the most. I only wish that I felt that fear more during the climax. I wanted it to be more emotional during the parts that are meant to hit hard, but all that violence didn't really shock me as much as it was maybe meant set out to. The final decision made at the end also kind of felt like it came out of nowhere... (-SPOILER ALERT- I would have had the big brother just mercy kill him against his will... THAT would have made a much better climax in my opinion... A sort of homage to Of Mice and Men if you will...)

Still, I found this film to be very much above average. I'd definitely give it a 9 or 10 had the climax been a little more solid, but I can live with the 8.

One final note... all these poor reviews on here are written by people that that are addicted to junk. I enjoy junk films as much as the next person but thus film isn't junk. It's a serious movie. I would barely call it a horror film. It leans more on the drama side. If you enjoy heavy drama and have a taste for the macabre, you'll probably enjoy this movie as much as I did.

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.