Someday soon I expect to see so much more from director Matthew Garrett, and some day very soon I hope he can hit as many high notes as he has with "Beating Hearts." Like any other child, young girls want to be loved, and they want to be cherished, and "Beating Hearts" is the basis of such a concept paving the way for one of the most startling and absolutely disturbing horror films I've seen all year. Garrett begins the film on a twisted note where our young protagonist is found one morning looming over the warm bosom of her mother. Garrett makes sure to frame this shot just right to where a simple game of fright becomes an absolute morning nightmare once the young girl has poked her mom twice with her fingers like a striking venomous snake whose poison is felt much too late for poor mother to do anything about.

Director Garrett doesn't say much about the background of these characters, nor does he give them a name, because at the end of the day the crime that's committed is much more heinous than any back story or meaningless exposition can hope to make up for, leaving us with grizzly images, a lone survivor, and the eyes of a young girl whose idealized views of love and affection have caused her to sink in to a horrific cesspool of destruction and carnage all around her. Gianna Bruzzese is without a doubt one of the most gifted up and coming young actresses out there and Garrett exposes her instinctive ability to look ruthless yet vulnerable all while achieving her master plan. Her conflict of emotions matched with inability to second guess herself in the face of mangled corpses is something of a startling process for any young actresses to comprehend and Bruzzese is well up to the task delivering a marvelous performance in a truly gripping and utterly harrowing horror picture you owe it to yourself to see when it goes in to festivals around the country.

Sure to be a festival favorite among the more intellectual horror buffs, "Beating Hearts" is an astonishing and horrific tale told through images and sounds rather than clunky exposition and meaningless back story; with marvelous performances from its cast and some incredibly grotesque imagery, director Matthew Garrett is a bona fide talent to look out for and be reckoned with.