सीरियल मॉम

Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) seems to be a typical Betty Crocker suburban housewife. Unfortunately, people are dropping like flies around her! Could this perfect mom be a serial killer?

"Serial Mom" is a ridiculously charming and clever film that never really received the credit it deserved. It is John Waters' best mainstream film, and its tongue-in-cheek portrayal of suburbia, domesticity, the media, and conventional gender roles is delightfully subversive. Kathleen Turner was criminally underrated--this was her best performance to date. The dialogue is hilarious, the murders are wickedly funny, and the overall atmosphere of the film is disturbingly bright and shiny. Co-stars Waters regulars Mink Stole, Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, and features a dynamite cameo by grunge goddesses L7. My Rating: 9/10

Imagine this: the main character is a woman called Beverly Sutphin. Her husband is a dentist and she does her best to bring up her children. In short, she is a respectable human being with the particularity of being a real stickler for good manners . Maybe, a little too respectable so that when someone speaks ill of one member of her family, Beverly is ready to kill to defend her family!

Only one filmmaker seemed designated to shot this highly entertaining black comedy: John Waters, the king of bad taste and extravagance. In "Serial Mom", most of the comical situations are structured about the two quoted characteristics. The whole is condensed in one hour and a half. You don't get bored one moment and you honestly laugh in front of all these murders. In "Serial Mom", you also recognize Waters' strong taste for bloody, gore and horror movies. Moreover, for this extraordinary director, it is the occasion to harm the model image of the American family.

All in all, a delightfully politically incorrect comedy led by a Kathleen Turner on top form.

An uproariously witty satire on "petty" bourgeois American values, John Waters brings his own distinctive madness to the screen by focussing on cardboard cut-out caricatures of pop culture Americana.

Turning his outrageous gaze on an archetypally perfect housewife and mother from the Baltimore suburbs in Maryland, supportive to her loving husband and teenage kids and possessing a real tlent for cooking, it appears that she is everything a stable, hard-working business man could want. However, there is a slight catch. She is also a serial killer.

Mom's tendency to take bloody revenge on any poor neighbouring housewife who fails to observe her rigid socially acceptable guidelines, like not recycling rubbish or driving too fast, is so barmy you are sure to find it absurdly and darkly funny. Kathleen Turner, alternating between dizzy, unquestioning devotion to her family and clinically cool, yet psychotic anger to offending neighbours, either appears to possess a martyr's yellow halo above her head, denoting divine lightness and freshness, or a focussed smile as she carefully contemplates her next victim.

If you are on the lookout for some perfectly vibrant, yet malicious black comedy, subscribe to "Serial Mom", one of the most ruthless, patronising skits on good manners and nosey, voyeuristic neighbours ever to hit the screen. If you like Waters' latest irreverent venture into visceral, cutting black humour, then get all his other movies, because they are all even more extreme and grotesque - "Pink Flamingos", "Hairspray", "Cry Baby" - all kitschy, underrated classics in their own right.

This movie was offensive, vulgar, shocking, and yes, mean spirited. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that was John Waters is all about? Kathleen Turner and Sam Waterston do a wonderful job of overacting (badly) in classic Waters fashion. Liver on a fireplace poker? Turner as June Cleaver making obscene and threatening phone calls? Juror 8 (Patty Hearst) wearing white shoes after Labor Day? How can you not love it? This movie ranks up there with Citizen Ruth or Heathers as one of the best black comedies ever. And it also seems to have given some inspiration to Natural Born Killers, the finest of the genre. (Although not nearly as easy to stomach.)

This film won't be to everyone's liking, but is certainly an all-time favorite of mine. Only a film like this can combine so many great elements into one entertaining movie.

Kathleen Turner is just purely brilliant as sweet mother Beverly Sutphin, who would look more at home in a show like Bewitched. However, we soon learn that she's not all that she seems. I love any movie that takes a classic element (in this case the innocent housewife) and completely turns it on its head.

And so the film leads us on a journey through Beverly Sutphin's life and motivations. The film grabs on, and doesn't let go, keeping the pace until the very last scene.

In bad taste? Well, yes. Sick humor? Quite often. Good? Oh yes. If you have a dark sense of humor, don't miss it for the world.