Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Serial Mom

Serial Mom by John Waters

Made in the mid 90's this was one of the more high profile and mainstream films to come from the mind of John Waters. It stars Kathleen Turner as the Serial Mom of the film title. Sam Waterson as her husband. Matthew Lillard as her horror movie loving son. And Ricki Lake as her boy crazy collectible selling daughter. Film starts off almost like a modern color version of Leave it to Beaver. But once her husband heads off to work and the kids are off to school the cracks in Ms Turner's facade start to show. Seems she loves to call one of the neighbor women and scream all kinds of obscenity's at her. Well after this she is off to the high school for a PTA meeting with her son's math teacher. The teacher tells her that Lillard is a deviant who is obsessed with horror movies. This pisses off Serial Mom and she catches the teacher in the parking lot and runs him over multiple times with her car. She heads off and gets the car washed before heading home to start cooking dinner for her family. The next morning the cops show up at her house to question her. Seems there was a witness who saw a blue station wagon run over the teacher. And Serial Mom is the only parent who was at school that day that has a blue station wagon. She answers the police's questions. And tries to help her daughter get over being stood up by the boy who was suppose to drive her to the flea market today. We head off to the flea market. And we see the aforementioned boy there with a super cute Traci Lords on his arm. Serial Mom sees this and follows him into the bathroom. Then runs him through with a fireplace poker. Well again there is a witness,but the cops don't believe him. Well the movie goes on with Serial Mom going after anyone that she believes is doing wrong to her family. And the family begins to suspect that their beloved matriarch is a killer. This film is a fun dark comedy that is a satire of the media circus that surrounds most high profile murder cases. The cast is all very good at their roles. And this has a decent amount of gore mixed with some very very black humor. I have enjoyed this film since the first time I saw it back when it hit VHS. Serial Mom earns a B+.