{"id":1960362,"date":"2025-08-14T16:43:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T16:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1960362"},"modified":"2025-08-14T16:43:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T16:43:26","slug":"review-no-tears-in-hell-is-brutal-but-empty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/review-no-tears-in-hell-is-brutal-but-empty\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: &#8216;No Tears In Hell&#8217; is brutal but empty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Alex (Luke Baines) is a seemingly normal young man but behind his preppy looks, he\u2019s a sadistic killer. Enabled by his mother (Gwen Van Dam), Alex lures his victims in by offering them something they need before taking them to his home to murder them. Taking pleasure in torturing his victims before ending their lives, Alex then indulges in cannibalism before selecting his next target.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018No Tears in Hell\u2019 is based on the real-life story of Russian serial killer Alexander Spesivtsev, who was nicknamed the Siberian Ripper in the early 90s. His horrendous deeds are translated to the frosty climate of Alaska for this film, which focuses mostly on the brutality of Alexander\u2019s crimes rather than anything else. When we first meet Alex he\u2019s being offered oral sex by a desperate young man in exchange for cigarettes, and while he rebuffs that offer, it sets the precedent for the kind of victims Alex goes on to choose.<\/p>\n<p>Through flashbacks we see how Alex was shaped by his mother, who encouraged his darkness rather than try to put him on the right path. In the present day, Alex lives with his elderly (and still deeply twisted) mother, as the two of them join forces to continue committing heinous crimes. There\u2019s a definite echo of \u2018American Psycho\u2019 character Patrick Bateman in the character of Alex. Both are cool, calculated and seemingly unflappable, and they like to indulge in torture rather than straightforward murder.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Credit: Scatena &amp; Rosner Films <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>The film doesn\u2019t shy away from the awful things that Alex does, often giving you far too good a look at his torture techniques. Those who are squeamish will do well to stay clear and even those hardened horror fans may find parts of this hard to stomach. For me, a big horror fan, that\u2019s part of the film\u2019s issue. It trades any sense of a strong narrative for shocks and gore, and honestly it\u2019s not enough to keep you hooked. Any attempt to really delve into the motivations of Alex and his mother are limited.<\/p>\n<p>Luke Baines is suitably vacant as Alex. He looks blank for most of the film and convinces as a menace, but he\u2019s not given enough material to flesh his character out. It\u2019s not enough for Alex to just be sadistic, the audience needs more to get to grips with. Similarly, Alex\u2019s mother and their victims don\u2019t get much development either. It\u2019s hard to feel anything towards any of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018No Tears In Hell\u2019 wants to shock and challenge the audience, and it will achieve that but not necessarily in the way it sets out to. The best horrors, even the most hardcore ones, build characters and a world that puts fear into you rather than simply revulsion. Unfortunately \u2018No Tears In Hell\u2019 is stomach churning and meandering, hoping to coast by on shocks rather than deliver any kind of impactful story.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cast:<\/strong> Luke Baines, Gwen Van Dam, Tatjana Marjanovic <strong>Director:<\/strong> Michael Caissie <strong>Writers:<\/strong> Michael Caissie (screenplay), Alexander Nistratov (story<strong>) Certificate:<\/strong> Unrated <strong>Duration:<\/strong> 105 mins <strong>Released by:<\/strong> Scatena &amp; Rosner Films <strong>Release date:<\/strong> 12<sup>th<\/sup> August 2025<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source entertainment-focus.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex (Luke Baines) is a seemingly normal young man but behind his preppy looks, he\u2019s a sadistic killer. Enabled by his mother (Gwen Van Dam), Alex lures his victims in by offering them something they need before taking them to his home to murder them. Taking pleasure in torturing his victims before ending their lives, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1960363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1960362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Review-No-Tears-In-Hell-is-brutal-but-empty.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1960362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1960362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1960363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1960362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1960362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1960362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}