A detective who questions the Sutphins even points out how remarkably Beverly brings to mind June Cleaver, though he misses a crucial clue about the obscene note sent to their whiny neighbor, Dottie Hinkle (Mink Stole). Waters's favorite twilight zones: 50's sitcoms that shaped a generation of dysfunctional families. Although the story is set in the present, Beverly seems stuck in one of Mr.
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The movie is milder than its premise makes it sound. When Misty (Ricki Lake) is stood up by a handsome date, she will regret crying to her mother, "I wish he were dead." How dare a teacher suggest that Chip (Matthew Lillard) may need therapy? Beverly responds with normal disbelief, then finds the teacher in the parking lot and runs him down with her car. But the strain of being a perfect mom is showing, for Beverly has developed a tendency to murder anyone who gets on her nerves. She is a Baltimore housewife with perfectly bobbed hair, a sparkling clean kitchen, a dentist husband (Sam Waterston) and two teen-age children with names that seem lifted from "Ozzie and Harriet": Chip and Misty. Kathleen Turner leaps into the most delicious role she has had in years as Beverly Sutphin. In "Serial Mom" he takes to heart the idea that being the All-American mother is enough to drive a woman crazy. John Waters is just the man to do it, for he sends up only what he deeply adores. A sad shadow of its former glories as a palace of dreams and nightmares.If you're going to build a career on bad taste, sooner or later you'll have to tackle the most sacred icon of all, motherhood.
It closed down shortly after that, but still stands today as a church.
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By 1994 the Beechmont Twin was falling apart and Serial Mom was the last movie I saw there. It was a wonderful little place that felt a lot more intimate and friendly than the big multiplexes that cut the throats of independent theaters. I even dragged a couple of unhappy friends to see Bruno Mattei's Night of the Zombies/AKA Hell of the Living Dead. By the mid eighties I was seeing things like Aliens, Platoon, and Psycho 3 at the Beechmont. Later I watched slasher films and other weird oddities the bigger chains wouldn't touch, like Galaxy of Terror and Up the Academy. I saw great movies there, like Frogs and Planet of the Apes sequels. There was a little theater in the neighborhood where I grew up in the '70s called the Beechmont Twin. I think it's one of the best Waters movies and it is a perfect introduction to his world for people who want something a little stronger than Hairspray, but might not quite be ready for Pink Flamingos or Desperate Living. The entire movie is framed as a documentary. Serial Mom is a sharp satire of serial killer worship, true crime buffs, celebrity adulation, and media sensation. Regular Waters actors Ricki Lake and Patricia Hearst round out the cast. Longtime Dreamland actress Mink Stole is great as a phone prank victim. Sam Waterston is also good as her dumbfounded husband, and future Scream and Scooby-Doo star Mathew Lillard is excellent as Turner's horror-happy video store clerk son. By appearances she is a normal Mom, but she builds up a body count of people who disappoint her.
Turner is magnificent in a role that could have been done by Divine. She is the embodiment of the maxim that serial killers appear to be normal people, but act out on a dark side of their natures. Kathleen Turner is the star of Serial Mom. The success of Hairspray allowed John to get big enough budgets to acquire Hollywood actors. Serial Mom has the look of a slick Douglas Sirk melodrama. Most of John's films are intentionally campy and owe a lot to the underground films of the Kuchar Brothers. It's also the closest Waters has come to achieving the look of a real mainstream production.
Shot in 1993 and released in 1994, Serial Mom is a forerunner to hip, self-aware '90s satires like Natural Born Killers and Scream. He managed to do so without really compromising his trashy trademark aesthetics. For John to make any real money he had to tone things down a bit. Nothing like his notorious early atrocities, of course. Of course even these family-friendly, foot-tapping joyrides had moments of weirdness. His previous two features, Hairspray and Cry Baby, were nostalgic, rock and roll driven light comedies. Serial Mom was the return of John Waters to R-Rated movie territory.
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