Serial Mom

In Towson, Maryland, Beverly Sutphin is the perfect mother: she makes breakfast, sends the children to school and laughs with the neighbours. She also kills people who fill the recycling wrong, wear white shoes after Labor Day or fail to rewind a video. When she is caught the trial turns into a show and Beverly becomes famous overnight. John Waters wrote and directed. Kathleen Turner plays Beverly. The budget was 13 million dollars. The production clashed with the distributor Savoy Pictures, which objected to the violence and the black comedy and demanded a re-edit and a new ending. Waters refused. It opened on 13 April 1994 and took only 7.8 million dollars domestically. It screened at Cannes the same year. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 63 percent. The reviews split; Roger Ebert gave two stars and felt Turner's realism undercut the humour, while others took to the satire. Her performance was widely called furiously funny. The film gained a cult over time. Academic readings point to it having anticipated the media behaviour around the O. J. Simpson trial. Who it is for: viewers who like black comedy, suburban satire and Waters's attitude. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by murder as comic material. The film stages the killings to be funny on purpose.