PopSyndicate.com

Whatever you do, don’t commit any social faux pas in front of Kathleen Turner – she’ll pull your liver out!

In a quiet suburban Baltimore neighborhood, housewife Beverly Sutphin (Turner) puts on a happy and positive exterior that fits right in with her nuclear 50’s style household.  But underneath the surface lives a hate-filled gorgon ready to taunt or kill anyone who wrongs her family or commits a gaffe against the community.  Neighbors, teachers, friends, and customers are all ripe for the killing when the maniacal matriarch begins a nuclear-family-or-death rampage.

Eventually, the cops find enough evidence to bring a case against Beverly, who represents herself in court.  Instead of becoming the scourge of society, Beverly finds herself propelled into a media circus that transforms her into a folk-hero-rock-star.  Suzanne Somers even shows up at the trial to study the likable defendant, as she will be playing Beverly in a made-for-TV movie.  The court’s decision and the ensuing events are just as twisted and sickly funny as the rest of the film.

As always, there is a bit of discomfort while watching a Waters film – as if you are doing something wrong and friends and family will find out only to shame you.  But that’s part of the charm! (The getting away with something slightly deviant that mirrors Waters’ own admitted childhood desire to be a juvenile delinquent.)

Serial Mom was one of the biggest star-casts that auteur John Waters had worked with up to the early `90s, and he pulled brilliant performances out of every single one of them.  Kathleen Turner is superb in her not-crazy portrayal of Beverly Sutphin, a woman who clearly is crazy.  Sam Waterston plays Eugene Sutphin D.D.S., Beverly’s husband, with the innocence and wide-eyed optimism of someone who grew up with Ozzy and Harriet.  Ricki Lake rejoins Waters for a third go (previously appearing in the 1988 Hairspray and the Johnny Depp vehicle Cry-Baby) as the Sutphin’s wronged daughter Misty, and a young Matthew Lillard (in one of his first roles) plays the Sutphin’s horror-movie-obsessed son Chip.

Other notable appearances include the real life all-woman metal band L7 as the fictional all-woman metal band The Camel Lips, Waters alum Mink Stole, Cry-Baby co-star Traci Lords, Patty Hearst as a juror at Serial Mom’s trial, and even Waters himself as the voice of Ted Bundy.

For the fourteenth anniversary we get an update of the previously released DVD.  Serial Mom: The Collector’s Edition, compared with the original release, has a vast amount of special features.  The original 1999 DVD release boasted the usual blasé faire: Interactive Menus, Cast Bios, Languages, Subtitles, etc.  The Collector’s Edition goes many steps further.

Several behind-the-scenes documentaries with fantastic interviews of cast and crew members are great, giving the audience a hint of how much fun it must be to work on a Waters set.  We get lots of background on Waters from his long time friends some of whom seem overly optimistic about Serial Mom’s future legacy.  The Kings of Gore documentary is a neat little piece of film history, and watching Waters expound on his love of films is fun to watch.  Waters provides a commentary track, as does Turner.  The addition of subtitles to the special features is something I hope to see as a standard facet of future extras-heavy DVDs.

For John Waters fans, Serial Mom: The Collector’s Edition is a must have for your collection.  And for those of you who have not yet experienced the bizarre and grotesque genius that is John Waters, this DVD release is a great jumping on point – meaning it’s very accessible to a more mainstream audience, but with the twisted take on life only Waters has.

4