We’re taking it old school for the third day of Spooktober and dipping into the countercultural realm of John Waters. I’m not too familiar with Waters, I know of him but this is the first of his movies I’ve seen in its entirety, and now I’m even more interested in the rest of his films because I really liked Serial Mom! Purportedly based on a true story and court case, Serial Mom tells the story of the picture-perfect American housewife Beverly Sutphin, whose excessively wholesome façade hides dark secrets – secrets that come out when she begins murdering people in ways that become more and more absurdly over the top. Serial Mom gets even wilder as we venture deeper and deeper into Beverly’s psychosis bringing us to the above-mentioned court case, which is something I will never forget.
The cast here is absolutely stacked. Kathleen Turner is excellent as Beverly Sutphin, but her supporting players are just as good. Matthew Lillard and Ricki Lake are fantastic as her weird children, each with their own quirky interests, and Sam Waterston of Law & Order is fantastic as the comedically straight-laced Mr. Sutphin, a mild-mannered dentist. Even the neighborhood ladies are hysterical, with the most memorable played by Mary Jo Catlett, someone who you may not know by name, but you definitely know by voice, as she’s played Mrs. Puff for the last twenty-something years. Everyone’s chemistry is fantastic and even if the script wasn’t as good as it is, then it would still be fun to see these performers play off of each other.
While the comedy is the bread and butter of this movie, Serial Mom isn’t afraid to dig into cultural commentary, a majority of which has to do with how the effects of celebrity and true crime cultures influence each other, among other things. Though true crime has been popular for a long time, the current explosion of true crime movies, podcasts, TV shows, and books plays entirely into Serial Mom’s hands; the issues here haven’t gone away, if anything they’ve intensified, along with the problematic issues of financial compensation brought up at the very beginning of the film. Without giving too much away, Serial Mom takes on a lot of different aspects of society; a desire for control and order, the need for squeaky-clean harmless entertainment, how violence and money intersect, and even how public opinion can sway with the breeze. There’s a lot going on here, and that makes it a fun movie to discuss and think over, even if not every point is perfectly made. I hadn’t heard much of Serial Mom before, but this absolutely needs to make a comeback and is totally worth a rental.
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