Serial Mom
John Waters, USA, 1994, 93 mins
Review by Gerald Houghton (1994)
Back from the all-singing, all-dancing Technicolor retro of his last two movies - Hairspray, Cry-Baby - Pope of Trash John Waters makes his first contemporary movie since 1981's pungent 'Odorama' classic Polyester. Kathleen Turner is Beverly Sutphin, whiter-than-white suburban mom to husband Eugene (Sam Waterston) and kids Misty (Rikki Lake) and Chip (Mathew Lillard). Their glistening Baltimore home is showroom-immaculate, and anything threatening the peace is fodder for Mom's alter-ego: a neighbour receives obscene phone-calls, Chip's math teacher falls under the family station-wagon, and, standing at a urinal, Misty's would-be boyfriend loses his liver on the end of a poker.
The obvious point about Serial Mom, aside from the benefits bestowed by a bigger budget, is just how much this is a return to Waters' bad taste suburban roots; serious bad taste. Scissors in the gut, assorted clubbings, a human torch - if nothing else, this comedy edges over the bulk of Hollywood competition, being both in your face and damn funny.
In Turner, Waters finds his best lead since losing Divine. After recent career-dismantling choices (Undercover Blues? VI Warshawski?) this is custom-built, the glee on her face as yet another citizen crosses the line of normality a joy behold as she throws herself with gusto into both the Brady Bunch niceness and sadistic splatter movie mayhem ("Pussy face! Cocksucker!")
Perennial designer Vincent Peranio's eye for the garish details is, as ever, perfect, the tongue-in-cheek Basil Poledourious score (with added Barry Manilow, no less) is impeccable, and members of the Waters rep company abound - Mary Vivian Pearce, a tremendous Mink Stole, former underage porn-star Traci Lords, and kidnap heiress Patty Hearst, who dares commit the ultimate felony of white stilettos out of season.
Arguably, Serial Mom is Waters finally going straight. Where Hairspray and Cry-Baby were (shock-horror) PG-family films, this is the first truly overground Waters film. Beverly is a secret serial killer fetishist (a signed picture of Richard Speck, a personalised Ted Bundy tape under the bed), and there are generous clips from (the banned) Texas Chainsaw Massacre and gore-soaked Blood Feast. But for horror fan Chip, one old woman's rudeness "must be from watching all those family films". Waters is making a few valid points about the celebrity of serial murder in here as well, but not too loudly.
Maybe the court room finale is a bit of an anti-climax. Maybe the script is a little too episodic. Maybe it is even a little too long at only 93 minutes. But when Turner sings the theme from Annie as she takes a leg of lamb to the head of a woman who refuses to rewind her videotapes, it would churlish to resist.