Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fashion has changed! NO IT HAS NOT!!!!!, July 28, 2003
SERIAL MOM is John Waters at his delightfully darkest. Kathleen Turner plays a soccer mom who harbors secret psychopathic longings and begins acting them out in the most bizarre ways. Ever seen anyone killed with a turkey leg while singing a song from ANNIE? If you've seen SERIAL MOM you have! Wow! Kathleen does a great job, but also look for Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, and a before he was famous Matthew Lillard throwing in great support. Oh, and who can forget Suzanne Sommers? She's awesome too! Waters regular Mink Stole steals her pussy willow scene as well. This is a great one! The DVD contains a commentary with John Waters, and as usual his track is every bit as entertaining as the movie. There are featurettes with all the leads talking about making this farce! It's a great package. DVD presentation is striking - good picture and sound of one of John's highest budget features.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a more mainstream effort from off-kilter king John Waters, April 19, 2005
SERIAL MOM is one of John Waters' more mainstream movie offerings and thus lacks the edge of earlier efforts (PINK FLAMINGOES, POLYESTER), though does have Kathleen Turner in one of her most accomplished tour-de-forces.
Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) seems like your ordinary stay-at-home wife and mother, but nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who crosses her path and defiles her code of morals is instantly killed or abused, starting with neighbour Dottie Hinkle (Mink Stole) whom Beverly harrasses with shocking prank phonecalls after Dottie rudely cut her out of a parking space. Then there's the boy who broke daughter Misty's heart, impaled by a Franklin Mint fire-poker; the rude man who doesn't floss, crushed by his airborne cooler-unit; the woman who doesn't rewind her videos, bludgeoned by a lamb chop, and the list goes on...!
Beverly's murder trial takes on a life of it's own and becomes a media circus. Suzanne Somers is the frontrunner to play Beverly in a TV miniseries and Beverly acts as her own defence. Too bad about the annoying juror (Patty Hearst) who is wearing white shoes after Labour Day...
Kathleen Turner glows in her ghoulishly-gleeful turn as Beverly. John Waters directs a fine cast (including Waters stalwarts Mink Stole and Ricki Lake).
This movie is simply delightful off-kilter comedy at it's best. Ricki Lake and Matthew Lillard play Beverly's teens Misty and Chip with Sam Waterston as Beverly's guileless husband. The cast also includes Traci Lords, Scott Wesley Morgan, Walt MacPherson, Justin Whalin, Patricia Dunnock, Lonnie Horsey and Mary Jo Catlett.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life doesn't have to be so bad, but it's hilarious anyway!, October 18, 2005
I thought this movie was a riot the first time I saw it. I was only vaguely aware of John Waters at the time, as he had hit it big with Hairspray a few years before. Watching this movie you can catch the little digs and subleties (the gal from L7 showing off her camel toe, that really filthy porn movie the friend Scottie is watching, etc.) here and there. Kathleen Turner plays the Divine role very well as the suburban housewife on the edge of exploding. Beverly is so obsessed with perfection and keeping her world in line that she snaps. The obscene calls to her neighbor Dottie (all because she cut her off in the parking lot at Joanne Fabrics) are hilarious. She kills the woman for not rewinding her video tapes before returning them, and even contemplates murder against her literbug neighbor for not recycling.
This was probably John Waters's salute to the courtroom groupie phenomena. We can turn mass murderers into celebrities, although I wish he had captured more of the party aspect of it rather than the sale of T shirts and merchandise. Patty Hurst is even in it, and if you didn't know otherwise John Waters was one of the Patty Hurst groupies back in the day. Suzanne Sommers even makes an appearance, in probably her most signifigant screen role to date, just being herself. It was a good time and captures one of John Waters's many obsessions.
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