John Waters’ exceedingly dark 1994 comedy Serial Mom explores our culture’s sick fascination with serial killers, murder, and true crime, but its attitude towards this romanticization of the murderously unwell is one of gleeful enthusiasm rather than sour judgment.
Waters would never be churlish enough to come down harshly against something as minor as being fascinated by depraved monsters who derive sick pleasure from torturing and murdering people.
Serial Mom is Waters’ tongue-in-cheek tribute to mass murderers and moms, and moms who are also serial slaughterers. Kathleen Turner is hilarious as maternal murderer Beverly Sutphin.
When Beverly gets annoyed, she overreacts slightly by murdering the sources of her irritation. For this doyenne of domesticity, there is a price for faux pas and insensitivity. That price is death.
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