John Waters | Serial Mom / 1994

 

THE PERFECT HOUSEWIFE

 

John Waters (screenwriter and director) Serial Mom / 1994

 

This black satirical comedy is, in some respects also a true horror film in the sense that this every day, perfect mom, Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) surrounded by her already somewhat maladjusted family Misty (Ricki Lake), Chip (Matthew Lillard), and her husband dentist Eugene (Sam Waterston), is on the verge of the perfection of Towson, Maryland suburban life, but on the side functions as a serial killer, knocking off the people who get under her skin. The first of these, after a series of pornographic calls and notes to neighbor Dottie Hinkle (Mink Stole), is the high school math teacher Mr. Stubbins, after he condemns Chip's obsession with horror films at a PTA meeting.

     Through a complete sense of guilelessness and duplicity, Beverly not only keeps the detectives Pike (Scott Wesley Morgan) and Gracey (Walt MacPherson), somewhat off her trail, but upon discovering that the young Carl, supposedly her daughter Misty’s boyfriend, is also dating a blond bimbo, kills him off in the men’s room with a fire poker just purchased by her neighbor.

     Eugene himself becomes so curious about the complex behavior of his wife that he investigates her nightly reading material, supposedly about birds, only to discover that Beverly had been communicating directly with the serial killer of the late 1970s, Ted Bundy.

      In the midst of one meal, Beverly simply leaves, leading the family to suspect that she is out to get Chip’s friend Scotty, who has mentioned to his friends that he finds Beverly a suspicious figure.

     In fact, it is his parents Ralph and Betty Sterner, she is after, mostly because of Ralph’s insistence for a dental appointment with Eugene on the morning she and her husband were to have gone bird-watching.

     She chooses a scissors to kill Betty and pushes an air conditioner upon the head of Ralph when he has presumed he has escaped.

     The other family members rushes to the constantly masturbating Scotty to find him midst arousal, but safe nonetheless. 

     Police follow the Sutphins to church that Sunday as Beverly is named as the prime suspect in the Sterners' murders. The service abruptly ends when everyone flees in panic after Beverly sneezes; in the confusion, Beverly escapes as police attempt to arrest her, she hiding in the video store in which Chip in employed.

     When a customer, who has refused to rewind a tape, refuses to pay the dollar fee and berates Beverly’s son, Beverly follows and fatally hits her over the head with a leg of lamb (a reference to a famous Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode).

     Scotty witnesses the act, a bit unbelievably, and Beverly is on the chase again, following him into a heavy metal bar featuring a lesbian trio. Eventually she joins him on the stage where she immolates him.

     Re-arrested, we have now entered director’s Waters canny realization the such horrific deeds lead not to shunning but to celebrity.

      No one in this film behaves as if those citizens killed meant anything (for the most part they are also despicable people), and her son and daughter are not involved in selling memorabilia, and other objects, as the crowd files into the October courthouse.

      The lawyer plans to plead insanity, but Beverly quickly fires him and defends herself, with her guiles and lies—with which through the film she has revealed—convincing the jury members that she is utterly innocent.

      A movie starring Suzanne Somers is already in her plans, and Somers appears as another distraction to any truth. Yet all this while, Beverly has been furious over the fact that one jury member, #8 (Patty Hearst) is wearing white shoes after labor day, and while she uncomfortably poses with Somers, she sneaks off to do in the juror. The juror’s body is uncovered in the midst of photographs, and Beverly, who seems uncomfortable with Somers, gives her a knowing link: perhaps she is next. Yet it is also hinted that Beverly is back in police custody.  

 

Los Angeles, June 1, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer blog (June 2025).