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1994-05-02
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Lights Out Movie Reviews
Copyright (c) 1994, Bruce Diamond
All rights reserved
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ SERIAL MOM: Written & directed by John Waters. Star- │
│ ring Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, │
│ Suzanne Somers, Mink Stole, Matthew Lillard, Mary Jo │
│ Catlett, Justin Whalen, and Patricia Hearst. Savoy │
│ Pictures. Rated R. │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
You've thought about it, 'fess up. The driver who cuts you
off. The neighbor whose dog thinks your lawn is a toilet. The
drunk at the end of the bar. Your ex-spouse. Barney. For the
briefest of instants, you want that sucker stone-cold, stiff-as-
a-board, deader-than-a-doornail wormfood. Then the moment passes
and you snap back to what passes for reality in your world.
That's the premise behind John Waters' cathartically-dark comedy,
SERIAL MOM, starring Kathleen Turner.
We've seen Turner this starkly dangerous before, in WAR OF
THE ROSES, 1989. In fact, she was more menacing in that film,
though she only kills one person, and that through mutual effort.
In SERIAL MOM, though, Turner mows down several people (you'll
find yourself cheering more often than not, which is Waters'
intent, and part of his wry commentary), all the while grinning
her eerie June Cleaver grin and cheerfully recycling household
items to Barry Manilow tunes. She's the model mom, all right,
but modeled after the likes of Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and
John Wayne Gacy. She's a Henrietta Lee Lucas, a Joan Wayne Gacy,
as the prosecutor tags her at the final reel trial. Yes,
unfortunately, she is caught and arrested, but not until after
she's racked up an impressive body count, is chased out of a
church service, and is hidden by her son (Matthew Lillard), who
thinks his mom is 'way cool because she's a serial killer.
Sam Waterston and Ricki Lake (who got her start in a John
Waters film, HAIRSPRAY, 1988) also star as Turner's husband and
daughter, who can't reconcile their sweet, loving, bird-watching
Beverly with the vicious murderer depicted in the media. For
most of the movie, Beverly dispatches people she more or less
knows: her son's math teacher, her husband's patients, her
daughter's unfaithful boyfriend, and so on. It's when she goes
after a stranger that her world begins to unravel. You'd never
know it to look at her in the beginning moments of SERIAL MOM --
she's the model homemaker, serving breakfast to her family in
full Donna Reed dress. When cops show up at the Sutphin door,
investigating obscene phone calls made to a neighbor, we get our
first inkling of just how twisted Beverly could be.
Turner's broad, hammy style works well here, although she's
a might *too* artificial in the opening scenes, as is the rest of
the family. They know they're lampooning the '50s suburban
sitcoms, and it shows in their empty smiles and studied
mannerisms. Turner was more natural, and as mentioned before,
more natural in WAR OF THE ROSES, but as the film progresses,
everyone relaxes into their roles, and the farcical elements
become supplanted by a clever commentary on the cult of
celebrity. Martin Scorsese made this same point more deftly a
decade ago in THE KING OF COMEDY, 1983, but Waters manages to
update the message (yes, things have changed that much in ten
years) into a sly entertainment for today's audiences.
RATING: $$$