It makes almost too much sense that Sam Brittan, who plays Tom, the titular “tearsucker” of Tearsucker, wrote the film.
Brittan brings the predatory man, who seeks out women with histories of abuse so that he can feed on their tears, to life with such intensity and commitment that it feels as though the script had to be written by him, or rather, that having written such a character, he was the only one who could play it.
What’s somewhat surprising, though, is that unlike other films about all too human killers like Maniac and American Psycho, which focus on those murderers, Tearsucker centers on Lilly (Allison Walter), initially at least. The film introduces us to Lilly as a woman who is still recovering from the emotional and physical violence of her last relationship. She lives in a home with bare walls, doesn’t take any interest in work, has no desire to go outside, and has no more faith in therapy.
But when her good, and seemingly only, friend Deb (Danielle McRae Spisso) suggests that she make a vlog, something Lilly had done regularly at one point in her life, she takes the advice and unloads an emotional avalanche into the void of the internet. She talks about her history and how it has left her feeling ashamed and unable to enjoy life, and halfway through the video starts weeping. It’s the weeping that brings Tom into her life.
Having seen the video on Reddit, Tom finds Lilly and injects himself into her life. Their first meeting is painfully uncomfortable, Tom tries to be charming but comes off, well, creepy, at least to this viewer.
Lilly is charmed, though. She accepts his advances and soon they have plans to meet again. At their next meeting, Tom confesses to watching self-help videos from the author of the book Lilly is reading, and uses the author’s terminology to open up a “vulnerable” and “honest” dialogue between them.
We learn that Tom has made a habit of learning and adopting the specific self-actualization and healing language of various women he has sought out so that he can more fully (and more quickly) win their trust, causing his inevitable break of that trust to generate the most satisfying tears for him to, literally, drink up. Brittan is brilliant as Tom; the few scenes we see of Tom by himself are haunting and stomach-churning in equal measure, as we see him rehearse language and masturbate to Lilly’s video.
But what really makes the performance transcendent, in the worst and best way, is Brittan’s mouthwork. The way he darts out his tongue when women begin to cry, the way he attempts to hold a normal expression but can’t quite stop himself from preparing his mouth to lick and suck up tears, is some of the most troubling and effective horror acting I’ve seen in years.
The film around that performance uses several formal tricks to draw us into Lilly’s emotional world, and then gutpunch us with Tom’s true nature. The sound design throughout is brutal, from phone vibrations that are so loud they make your body shake to boiling water shrieking through kettles so loud you may want to cover your ears.
Director and cinematographer Stephen Vanderpool uses light and shadow to suck us into the images on screen and emphasize ideas of the seen and unseen in each of us. Vanderpool’s pièce de résistance, though, is the choice to use extreme close ups on eyes as they begin to tear-up, tears falling down cheeks, and Brittan’s mouth as he begins to succumb to his compulsion.
Tearsucker wants to make its audience squirm and it’s wildly successful in achieving that goal. It doesn’t reach the heights of movies like Maniac or American Psycho, but its commitment to portraying the cruelty and the commitment to cruelty of its central villain are to be applauded. More than anything, it makes me excited to see what Brittan and Vanderpool do next.
Note: this article was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn't exist.
The film recently screened at the Chattanooga Film Festival and is now available via various Video On Demand (VOD) platforms.