#Beverly sutphin serial killer true story movie#

#Beverly sutphin serial killer true story movie#

Chip works in a video store and his room is adorned with movie posters and pictures of gore shots (as a sweet touch, there is also the occasional photo of his girlfriend Birdie).

LillardвЂ™s character Chip (who is essentially вЂњwhat if LillardвЂ™s character in Scream wasnвЂ™t so obnoxious?вЂќ) feels like the key to figuring out what Waters really wanted to do with Serial Mom: display his affinity for gross out psycho killer movies from the 1950s and 1960s. Turner has a very wonderful supporting cast to extend that warm domestic atmosphere in Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake, Matthew Lillard (respectively as BeverlyвЂ™s oblivious husband, lovesick daughter, and grotesquerie-obsessed son вЂ“ all embodying these traits in affably charming ways), Mink Stole and Mary Jo Catlett (as BeverlyвЂ™s suspecting and putupon neighbors). Somehow, in every bit of the 93 minutes that make up Serial Mom, none of BeverlyвЂ™s assaults cease to feel shocking in their abruptness, no matter how gleefully camp the scenario: killing somebody with a turkey leg, smacking them over the head with a payphone, or immolating victims on stage at a punk rock show called Camel Lips (played by L7). Waters sneaks in ominous signs of what Beverly is up to next without diluting the ironic вЂњhorror movieвЂќ approach every time she kills. Together they more than sell the vile deviance hiding inside your local suburbs. ThereвЂ™s never the sense of push-pull in whoвЂ™s got control over the scene there is just so much chemistry between WatersвЂ™ aesthetic and TurnerвЂ™s enjoyment of the material. But when Turner guides the scenes to a more sinister bent with either a passing look of extreme contempt or relishing any line reading of coarse indecency, Waters is very happy to amplify her shocking violence even something as small as swatting a fly in the beginning of the movie feels offensive. Turner's radiance turns up to 11 on the most unnerving homebody who gently scolds for profanity and gum-chewing. With the most polished filmmaking of his entire career, Waters and cinematographer Robert Stevens clean up and brightens shots to a bubbly sunny mood. Turner and Waters work so well off of each other that itвЂ™s kind of shocking that they didnвЂ™t make any movies together after this. With Kathleen TurnerвЂ™s housewife character Beverly Sutphin and her double life getting a kick out of sending vulgar notes and crank calls to her poor neighbor Dottie and murdering anybody who crosses her in the slightest way, Waters found the perfect premise for his preoccupations: subverting pleasant 50s and 60s nuclear suburbia (such as in his most popular film Hairspray) and his early roots as a shock transgression facilitator (as his most notorious film Pink Flamingos).

Serial MomВ happens to be the film of his career that best mixes WatersвЂ™ two major strands of subject matter. Though that explanation forgets that John Waters has an inherent gift for cult.

Our collective fascination with the true heinous crime stories, that's bled on over from late-night programming to award-winning prestige television and podcastings, could be used to explain part of why Serial Mom has developed a devoted cult following after its financial underperformance. There is little prophetic in the satire but there is A LOT of scary forecasting regarding the OJ Simpson murder case that was just around the corner at the time of its release. Hell, it wasnвЂ™t even new to 1994 many of the social observations Serial Mom makes arguably were already well before up to the previous yearвЂ™s The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom. The existence of Serial Mom 25 years ago establishes that AmericaвЂ™s current obsession with true crime stories вЂ“ with the likes of Serial and American Crime Story and the never-ending avalanche of Netflix documentaries вЂ“ is not something remotely new to our day and age.