Seral Mom - Dark Comedy. Review on Serial Mom Movie

Serial Mom

• is a 1994 dark comedy film written and directed by John Waters, starring Kathleen Turner as the titular character, Sam Waterston as her husband, and Ricki Lake and Matthew Lillard as her daughter and son.

Beverly Sutphin(Kathleen Turner) appears to be a typical suburban housewife living with her husband Eugene(Sam Waterston) and their children Misty(Ricki Lake) and Chip(Matthew Lillard). In fact, she is a violent sociopath whose polite manners and socially correct habits — she recycles and never wears white after Labor Day — conceal her criminal behavior.

Beverly Sutphin(Kathleen Turner) appears to be a typical suburban housewife living with her husband Eugene(Sam Waterston) and their children Misty(Ricki Lake) and Chip(Matthew Lillard). In fact, she is a violent sociopath whose polite manners and socially correct habits — she recycles and never wears white after Labor Day — conceal her criminal behavior.

Beverly's overblown reactions to everyday events lead to murder.

When Paul Stubbins(John Dilative), Chip's high school math teacher,

criticizes her son's schoolwork, she runs over him with her car,

killing him. When she sees her neighbor, Rosemary Ackerman(Mary Jo Catlett),

spilling litter everywhere while taking out the trash, she flies into a

murderous rage over her failure to recycle. When Beverly's daughter

Misty is stood up by a date, Carl Pageant(Lonnie Horsey), she murders

him with a fireplace poker.

Among the first to suspect Beverly's criminal tendencies is her neighbor, Dottie Hinkle(Mink Stole),

who receives vulgar and threatening letters and phone calls from her.

Soon Beverly's husband Eugene finds disturbing items in their bedroom,

including an autographed photo of Richard Speck, an audiotape of Ted Bundy(voice of John Waters), and a scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings of Jonestown and Charles Manson.

After Carl Pageant's death, Beverly's daughter Misty visits the video

store where her brother works and announces to Chip and his friends,

"Our mother is Charles Manson".

When the Sutphins go to church that week(followed by a fleet of

police cars), they hear a news report on the car radio naming Beverly

as the suspect in two more murders — Betty(Kathy Fannon) and Ralph

Sterner(Doug Roberts). When they arrive at church, they are met with

scorn and suspicion by the other congregants. The church's message

board announces that the day's sermon is "Capital Punishment & You." During his sermon, the minister tries to justify the death penalty by rhetorically suggesting that Jesus Christ could have spoken out against capital punishment while he was being crucified.

Police detectives confirm that Beverly's fingerprints match those at

the Sterner crime scene and attempt to arrest her, but Chip and Birdie

help her escape. They hide her at Chip's video rental store, where she

overhears a customer named Mrs. Jensen bickering with Chip over paying

a fee for failing to rewind a videotape. After renting the film version of Annie,

Mrs. Jensen calls Chip a "son of a psycho." After she leaves, Chip and

Birdie discover Beverly missing and realize she's en route to Mrs.

Jensen's house.

Beverly enters Mrs. Jensen's house while she's watching the opening credits of Annie and singing along to "Tomorrow", and bludgeons her to death with a leg of lamb

while screaming "Rewind!" at her. She then notices a family friend,

Scotty, spying from a window and begins chasing him. She tries to stab

him with a knife through the car's convertible roof while yelling at

him, "Buckle your seat belt!". Scotty drives off, but Beverly carjacks a passing van and follows him to Hammerjack's, where the all-girl band Camel Lips(L7)

is playing. Scotty tries to escape by running on stage, but Beverly

causes a light fixture to fall on him and sets him on fire using a

cigarette lighter and an aerosol can. Her family arrives to see Scotty

die and the police arrest Beverly.

Beverly's trial becomes a national sensation. She is dubbed "Serial Mom" by the media, and a TV movie about the case starring Suzanne Somers

is planned. Chip hires an agent to manage the family's media

appearances, while Misty and her new boyfriend, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, sell merchandise about their mother's trial outside the courthouse.

During opening arguments, Beverly notices that a member of the jury(Patricia Hearst) is wearing white shoes after Labor Day, a fashion faux pas. When she tries to bring this to the attention of her attorney, he dismisses her and claims that Beverly is not guilty by reason of insanity.

This causes Beverly to ask that her lawyer be fired and that she be

permitted to represent herself. The judge agrees and the trial begins.

Beverly proves to be quite formidable defending herself at trial.

When Dottie Hinkle testifies that Beverly is her prank phone caller,

Beverly's courtroom antics cause Dottie to explode in a cursing fit and

the judge holds her in contempt of court.

When Mrs. Ackerman takes the stand, Beverly destroys her credibility by

forcing her to admit that she doesn't recycle. During the testimony of

the man who witnessed Carl's murder, Beverly fans her legs, sexually

arousing the man and causing him to commit perjury.

The stoner chick who saw Beverly murder Mr. Stubbins is discredited by

her intoxicated demeanor. Beverly questions a police detective about

the merits of judging her a criminal by snooping through her garbage,

bolstering her argument by displaying a porno magazine called Chicks With Dicks, which she claims was found in the detective's trash. And during the testimony of a forensics expert, the entire courtroom is starstruck and completely distracted by Suzanne Somers.

When the verdict

is read and Beverly is found not guilty on all charges, she laughs

maniacally and says, "Kids, I'm coming home!" to her family, who is

less than thrilled by her acquittal. Beverly follows the juror wearing white shoes to a payphone

and overhears her telling a friend that she always thought Beverly was

completely innocent. Beverly kills the juror by striking her in the

head with the telephone receiver and reunites with her family outside

the courthouse. When the jury foreman discovers the juror's dead body,

everyone stares blankly at Beverly, realizing she is indeed "Seria Mom".