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SERIAL MOM
In my view John Waters’ best film, a funny and subversive comedy about serial killer worship starring a never-better Kathleen Turner. It’s pure John Waters through and through, but still watchable and entertaining (not always the case with his films).
The Package
1994’s SERIAL MOM, budgeted at a reported $14 million, was and probably
still is John Waters’ most expensive effort, and yet he still injected quite a
bit of his personality and obsessions (I’ve heard Savoy Pictures execs tried to
have the ending changed because they felt it was “too John Waters”). It’s set,
as are all Waters’ films, in his hometown of Baltimore, and readers of Waters’
books SHOCK VALUE and CRACKPOT will recognize many of his favorite pastimes
played out here, including his penchant for sitting in on high-profile murder
trials. But unlike early no-budget Waters works such as MONDO TRASHO and PINK
FLAMINGOS, SERIAL MOM actually looks and feels like a real movie, and nor does
it go the crassly commercial route like his later films CRY-BABY and PECKER.
SERIAL MOM can also be viewed as one of the key films in a subgenre unique
to the year 1994, which also saw the releases of LOVE AND A .45 and
NATURAL BORN
KILLERS, both of which pitilessly examined the murder chick popular back then.
For those who don’t remember, that time gave us the Amy Fisher, Lorena Bobbitt
and Tonya Harding scandals, all avidly followed by an extremely accommodating
media, not to mention the beginnings of the O.J. Simpson case and the inception
of serial killer trading cards. Sounds like perfect material for a John Waters
movie, and indeed it is.
The Story
Pretty Beverly Sutphin is the perfect Baltimore homemaker in every way: she
lives in a large suburban home, has a dentist husband and two reasonably
well-adjusted teenage kids--and a morbid preference for making obscene phone
calls and following the doings of serial killers! Despite her seemingly happy
demeanor, Beverly is a coiled spring just waiting to snap, and does so when
during a PTA meeting a snooty instructor says disrespectful things about her
son’s love of horror movies. She runs the guy over in the school parking lot,
and then backs over him to be sure he’s dead.
From there Beverly stabs an un-neighborly neighbor
woman to death with scissors, offs the woman’s husband by dropping an air
conditioner on his head, and impales a young punk who’s cold-shouldered her
daughter. By this time the police have become suspicious of Beverly, and
commence going through her garbage and casing her house. She still manages to
get in two more killings: first she fatally beats a woman with a leg of lamb
because she doesn’t rewind her rental videos and then burns to death one of her
son’s buddies because he never wears a seatbelt when driving.
It’s at this point that Beverly is caught and dragged into court, which
immediately becomes a media sensation. News people swarm the place and
Beverly’s kids enthusiastically hawk specially made “Serial Mom” merchandise.
Susanne Sommers, in preparation to play Beverly Sutphen in an upcoming biopic,
even shows up to watch the proceedings. Beverly acts as her own council and
manages to sway the jury in her favor, but is nonplussed by the fact that one of
the jurors is wearing white shoes after Labor Day--can another killing be
imminent?
The Direction
John Waters got his start making skuzzy, no budget underground pictures
that flaunted their tackiness, and never seems to have really “gotten” the jibe
of professional moviemaking, despite having been working in that sphere for the
last couple decades. At their best his films have a distinctive personality and
skewed worldview that set them apart. That’s definitely the case here, where
the filmmaking is actually reasonably polished; it has an easy flow, with
action-murder sequences put together in slick and concise fashion (as opposed to
Waters’ more recent films CECIL B. DEMENTED and A DIRTY SHAME, both of which
succumb to incoherency).
The humor is funny and disarmingly perceptive for the
most part, even if it is overly broad at times (apparently not Waters’ intent,
but that’s how it plays). At times the film does evince a hint of the moral
queasiness that characterized NATURAL BORN KILLERS in Waters’ glorified
treatment of his serial killer protagonist, but the proceedings are ultimately
too outlandish to ever seem very troubling.
At the center of it all is Kathleen Turner as Beverly Sutphin, the Serial
Mom, appearing alongside Waters regulars like Mink Stole, Ricki Lake, Patricia
Hearst and Traci Lords, and evidently fully at ease in Waters’ twisted universe;
Turner clearly understood the role and the film’s overall tone, and furthermore
looks great throughout, every inch the movie star she used to be (this film was,
incidentally, one of Turner’s last worthy screen roles, with the remainder of
her movie career devoted to supporting parts in forgettable fare like THE REAL
BLONDE, A SIMPLE WISH and BABY GENIUSES). Sam Waterston, the refined star of
respectable films like THE GREAT GATSBY and THE KILLING FIELDS, also comports
himself well as Beverly’s understandably befuddled hubbie.
Vital Statistics
SERIAL MOM
Savoy Pictures
Director: John Waters
Producers: John Fiedler, Mark Tarlov
Screenplay: John Waters
Cinematography: Robert Stevens
Editing: Janice Hampton, Erica Huggins
Cast: Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Suzanne Somers, Matthew
Lillard, Patricia Hearst, Mink Stole, Scott Wesley Morgan, Walt MacPherson,
Justin Whalin, Mary Jo Catlett, Traci Lords, Patricia Dunnock, Lonnie Horsey,
John Badila