"This is intolerance taken to the hilt. It was fun to play a role that ranged from straight to over-the-top. I laughed everyday. Kind of felt like my (6 year old) daughter half the time, you know - I'm going to do something really bad today." - Kathleen Turner

After I read about the making of this film in 1992, two years after John Waters' last film "Cry Baby," I had to wait two more years, until 1994, to see it's release. After viewing it, I kind of wish it never existed.

Waters' 12th film, if you count his early shorts, is his most commercial yet. With the sad death of Divine and Edith Massey, Waters' is left to cast well-known stars in important roles. Of course, Divine could never have played "Serial Mom." Waters is right to cast Kathleen Turner here. Still, the film leaves a lot to be desired.

The premise doesn't even sound up to Waters' best. A suburban housewife goes on a murderous rampage. Ho-hum. Waters uses the film to delve into his peculiar hobbies: serial killers, celebrity trials, and fun-loving teenagers. Nothing really interesting or funny is ever explored. Waters gets a few chuckles here and there by recycling this film's one gag over and over, but over-all the film falls flat on it's face. He even ignores his own rule of having no film run over 85 minutes and goes close to 90 here. Watching the film, however, it's running time seems more like 3 hours.

Turner, for her part, seems to thoroughly enjoy her role as Beverly Sutphin, the titular matriarch. After we are introduced to her "Leave it to Beaver"-esque existence, we get to see her dark side. She makes an obscene call to a neighbor, Waters' stalwart Mink Stole, and hangs up. Turner giggles happily punctuating the fact that she is really, really having fun here. Stole, as usual, is terrific too. But other characters never fare as well. Sam Waterston is horribly miscast as Beverly's husband. He seems totally lost here which is not surprising since he has almost nothing to do. Ricki Lake, who first appeared in Waters' "Hairspray" is dull on screen now that she's slimmed down. She never does anything interesting. Worse yet, she looks 30 and is supposed to be a teenager. The teenage boys Waters cast are cute but none of them can act. Even Suzanne Somers, in a Waters-esque cameo, seems lame.

The film is really Waters first horror homage and he intersperses the action with clips from some of his favorites. Herschell Gordon Lewis' "Blood Feast," as well as "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and a Joan Crawford film - the one where she plays an axe murderer ("Straight Jacket") - are all shown here. Waters' also pays homage to "Andy Warhol's Dracula" and "Halloween" in two of the killing sequences here. I may have missed some others. Still, none of this is very interesting let alone unabashed fun. It all just simply lays there. Imagine this - Kathleen Turner kills a teenager with a fireplace poker and the kid's liver gets stuck on the end of it. She wiggles it and wiggles it and it wont come off. Sounds funny doesn't it? It isn't.

"Serial Mom" isn't the least bit sick. Nothing shocks us or grosses us out here. Very little is funny. Waters' biggest gag has Beverly angered at a juror (Patty Hearst) for wearing white shoes after Labor Day. Again, some of this stuff sounds funny on paper but it hardly ever is on celluloid. Waters' seems lost in mediocrity throughout most of the film. His most amusing moment comes early in the film, during the credits sequence. In it, Beverly chases a housefly throughout the sequence in the kitchen as the credits roll. Finally she closes in and kills the fly. We see the bloody remains on a clean white plate in close-up. It is here, with this shot in static, that Waters places his own credit as writer/director on the film.

Also, Waters has fun skewering mediocre songs. He has Beverly constantly enjoying Barry Manilow's "Daybreak." (How did he ever get the rights?) and even stages a murder of a victim while she is watching "Annie" on videotape. Imagine Turner hacking up a victim to the tune of "Tomorrow." And you can envision the film's best gag.

Taking all this into account, "Serial Mom" is still Waters' worst film. His fans will hate it because it seems like a sell-out. It is watered-down (or should that be Waters-down). Regular movie-goers won't get what little humor there is here. I can't imagine anyone uninitiated to Waters' work understanding this lame flick.

In the film, Waters' treats his murder victims with the same casual abandonment that they receive in other horror films. Beverly's last victim, a masturbation-obsessed teenage boy who is a friend of her sons, is set ablaze and left to burn. He is hardly even mentioned again. Like all horror films, that is this film's saddest point - and one of the few things that disgusts me about Waters' infatuation with murder and mayhem. He seems to have no compassion for the victims of these heinous crimes. There is something not right about that.

I have no compassion for this film either. Waters, one of the most unique visionaries of the American cinema, fails miserably here. Next time you see him, point at him and laugh out loud. Yell - "'Serial Mom' sucks! You're a sell-out!" Let's see how he likes it.

Notes: As is his wont, Waters filmed the piece in his beloved hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.

At first, Turner was reluctant to take the role. "The biggest misconception I had about John was that he was still amateurish - not a professional filmmaker," she said. Waters went to New York and talked her into doing the role by explaining that she was perfect for it. "When you tell an actor she's the only one who can do the part the right way, you've got her!" she claimed.

Waters, a self-proclaimed "trial groupie" (i.e. someone who goes to courtroom trials for their entertainment value), began teaching filmmaking in prisons several years ago. He still does so to this day. "I think the rehabilitation of prisoners is possible," he says. "I'm definitely against capitol punishment." Waters' story of how his work with prisoners began is discussed in his book "Shock Value."

Waters is a consummate bibliophile of the bizarre. His collection includes books like "Hunting Humans," "Prison Groupies," "Women who Love Men who Kill," "Practical Homicide Investigations," and "Unspeakable Recipes," which explains how one can cook dogs, rats, etc... Waters' collection also includes several books about Charles Manson and Patty Hearst.

"Serial Mom" was shown "out of competition" at Cannes in 1994.

Report Card Script: D Acting: C Cinematography\Lighting: C Special Effects\Make Up: C Music: A Final Grade: F

Get Your "Serial Mom " Stuff: DVD VHS Check Out filethirteen's POSTER store!

More of Lodger's reviews indexed alphabetically! Just click your favorite letter to go there.

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

HOME

In Association with:

Posters From!

Get your Movies

Please Visit