Serial Mom: Retro Review
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!
So in honor of Mother’s day I decided to do this review. It’s not exactly something that falls into geek culture, unless you count horror and true crime fanatics, but I wanted to do it anyway. I have a couple of clothes friends whose mothers have always been like mothers to me and a lot of friends who have become mothers themselves, but there are four women in particular who stand out to me: The first two are my paternal and maternal grandmothers: Marion Jones and Robbie Felder. I am very grateful for the wisdom these ladies have passed down to me and I cherish every moment I have with them.
The next is Connie Jones, who gave birth to me and always made sure I had the things I needed and did the best she could to get me the things I wanted when I deserved them. Last but definitely not least, is Lisa Jones. She has loved me and treated me as if I was her own from the very beginning even when I was stubborn and resistant to it. The love and support I have gotten from all of the above sustains me and keeps me motivated to do that which I must to get where I want to get. Your love keeps me reaching for the stars ladies! I love and appreciate you all!
Okay, now that the sappy stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about the movie. This is one I snuck a couple of viewings of as a child and snickered about when I was much younger, but this is probably my first time re-watching it as an adult. The truth of the matter is, while it has quite a few moments of hilarity, Kathleen Turner’s performance as Beverly Sutphin is very very chilling. Some might even go as far as to call it disturbing. Ms. Turner is a very talented actress and this role was definitely part of the early stages of that fantastic career. Seeing her more recently in “Californication” and “Dumb and Dumber To” shows that she hasn’t lost any of her comedic timing.
She appears to be the perfect mother to everyone around her. The police even say she is “the closest to normal we’ll get around here.” Even the audience believes how ridiculously perfect she is, until we find out about her obscene phone calls to her neighbor. Her voice and language become very scary pretty quick when she’s home alone and doing her pranking. This is only the first hint of her life as a secret sociopath. We get much deeper into who she is later on when we find that she has been sending correspondences back and forth with serial killers and in prison and reading true crime books.
The first part of the growth of her problem is when she murders a math teacher for condemning her son’s taste in movies. Things just go downhill from there as she kills people for various disturbing reasons like, not wearing a seatbelt, standing up her daughter, speaking ill of her husband, not rewinding a rented movie before returning (cassettes were still a thing at the time) and even wearing white shoes after labor day. Her methods and motives are hilarious and even when evidence is provided, she still keeps that perfect wife and mother disguise about her that makes everyone doubt the truth.
The movie holds an embarassing mirror up to America’s obsession with violence and true crime by showing her superstardom at being found out. Even during her absurd trial, the entire courtroom is distracted by the appearance Suzanne Somers (for our younger readers: she was huge in the 90’s) who is interested in playing her in a movie. Women outside of the courtroom muse of how they wish they were brave enough to kill the people who frustrate them as well while they buy “Serial Mom” t-shirts. It’s an honest portrayal of how some people can be.
John Waters hasn’t written or directed a bunch of films since, but I think the thing he got perfect and more subtle than anything else was how two-faced people can be. A large part of the way people interact with each other is based on pretense. Everyone puts on a false face and there are so many stories about suburban housewives that everything the women do here fits perfectly in this kind of films. Everyone is so falsely polite it brings one close to retching at the sight of their “niceties.” The fact is that most of the women in this movie are terrible people and Beverly is simply acting on the impulses that most people who are watching this movie or reading this review have definitely felt.
The strange part is how much empathy I felt for this murderous character. I felt as though I understood her frustrations with those around her and how much she wanted to protect her family from who she was and who everyone else secretly was. Mostly though, Kathleen turner’s performance is so disturbing that I wanted her to get help. This character could hardly be considered anything other than insane. She’s not quite diabolical as much as she is sick and you can really feel it coming off of the character.
The film gets really campy in a lot of places and it is quite funny, but some of it is so creepy that it’s hard to laugh at it sometimes. The biggest issue I had with it, is the whole “based on a true story” disclaimer at the beginning of it. I tried to find out about this story, only to find a few secondhand accounts of a mother who killed her daughter’s bullies. If that’s the case, the story here is so different that I can’t see why they even bothered to mention it. I guess it was just to build interest and make things seem a little scarier. The scariest part of the movie though, is the fact that every mother could possibly be only a few liars and bullies away from becoming a serial mom… probably not though.
Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.
