Film Notes: Serial Mom

Editor’s Note: Come see Serial Mom at the Paramount Theatre Friday, June 16

Few directors have earned their nicknames so completely as John Waters, the Pope of Trash. Anyone familiar with the pencil-’stached provocateur’s early output such as the infamous Pink Flamingos or the delirious Desperate Living will know the boss of Baltimore pulls few punches when it comes to truly sick comedy; crafting films which are both deeply funny and really, really good at grossing out straight people. However, something happened in the 1980s; a seismic shift in Waters’ approach to agitating filmgoers with a big queer cattle prod – he went mainstream.

Well, not entirely… but 1981’s Polyester proved the Sultan of Sleaze’s first turn away from the X-rated dog doo dinners of yesteryear into something resembling movies you could show your parents. Starring the ineffable Divine as a put-upon housewife and the rock-solid Tab Hunter as her schmoozy love interest, Polyester’s focused and subversive Sirkian parody – produced in the early days of New Line Cinema – netted Waters his first bouquet of “respectable” critical success. Seven years later, he would release his sickest joke yet: a certain PG-rated (gasp!) throwback kitschfest called Hairspray. Predicated on Waters’ fixation with a local Baltimore bandstand program called “The Buddy Dean Show,” Hairspray’s underdog story of “pleasantly plump” girls and racial integration would prove a smash success, paving the way for an equally popular film in Cry-Baby, and eventually, a project with Waters’ largest budget yet. Hitting cinemas in 1994 and based on another of his various obsessions, this was the “true crime” comedy Serial Mom.

Starring Kathleen Turner, the baritone femme of our dreams, Serial Mom follows the (literal) trials and tribulations of a housewife who just can't stop herself from murdering to preserve her family’s picturesque existence. Will poor Beverly Sutphin ever find peace, or will her tasteless neighbors finally push her over the edge? Or maybe it’s the growing pile of bodies that'll be her downfall… or the encroaching media circus around her killer antics? Tapping on the same suburbia subversion which made Polyester such a hit and allegedly based on a “true story,” Serial Mom dives headfirst into a lalaland of pastel tones, obscene phone calls, fractured family dynamics, and the sense that any home could be improved by a painting of Kathleen Turner above the mantle.

Featuring a hilarious, standout performance from Turner and an iconic supporting stable including Waters favorite Mink Stole and perennial champ Matthew Lillard as a pre-Scream horror-obsessed video store teen, Serial Mom pulls double duty as goofy comedy and a satire of America’s true crime obsession which has only become more relevant in the time since release. Longtime Waters fans will need no convincing, but those new to the Prince of Puke will find Serial Mom a great entry point into the tacky, tasteless, and truly tickling world of one of cinema’s greatest slimeballs. After all, how many other films can claim an overcooked leg of lamb as a murder weapon?