Serial Mom

The culmination of Waters’s “commercial” period and an intriguing reverse of Female Trouble. As he had done in his 1974 avant-garde classic, the director blurs the boundaries between the norm and excess, and indulges in deliberations regarding the perverted nature of popularity. This time, the pretext Waters uses for his reflections is the story of Beverly Sutphin (the excellent Kathleen Turner), an exemplary housewife who turns out to be a serial killer, murdering anyone who has harmed her family in any way. The protagonist’s unique personality immediately attracts the attention of the general public, and Beverly unexpectedly proves to be a master at skillfully managing her ambiguous fame. Serial Mom is not only a satire on the cult of celebrities, but also an ironic story about the ubiquitous spectacle, gradually invading an increasing number of areas of public life. The judiciary is one of them, and the trial scenes during which Beverly uses various legal loopholes to defend herself and discredit successive witnesses give the movie the status of a masterful parody of the courtroom drama.

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