Serial Mom - Why doesn't mom stop killing?

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Movie
German title Serial Mom - mother won't let the killing
Original title Serial mom
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1994
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director John Waters
script John Waters
production John Fiedler
Mark Tarlov
music Basil Poledouris
camera Robert M. Stevens
cut Janice Hampton ,
Erica Huggins
occupation

Serial Mom - Why doesn't mom stop killing? (Original title: Serial Mom ) is an American black comedy from 1994. Directed by John Waters , who also wrote the screenplay . Kathleen Turner played the main role . Although the film's foreword suggests otherwise, the film is not based on true events.

action

Housewife Beverly Sutphin is married to a dentist , has two teenage children, and lives in suburban Baltimore . Beverly is a caring wife and mother, but when it comes to certain things like etiquette, safety or her family, Beverly Sutphin doesn't know how to joke: She terrorizes the neighbor Dottie with anonymous, obscene calls because she snatched a parking space from under her nose . This side remains hidden from her family and friends for a long time, as she immediately looks like the perfect housewife again within a few seconds.

When Beverly’s son Chip’s maths teacher makes the boy - and indirectly also his mother, by asking whether something is not going well in the family - bad, the mother brutally runs over him. In the next few days, she murders anyone who even stands in her family's path. Carl, the boyfriend of her somewhat chubby daughter Misty, goes to the local flea market with another girl, so she pokes him with a poker in the men's room. The Sturner couple, patients with Beverly's husband, do not follow his instructions as a dentist and annoy him with phone calls even at the weekend. Beverly makes sure this never happens again. She is just as ruthless with a customer of the video shop where her son works, who absolutely refuses to rewind her videos. Her last murder victim is Scotty, a friend of her son, who has seen her murder and never puts on his seat belt in the car anyway - he is set on fire by her during a concert.

At first nobody wants to believe that Mrs. Sutphin was behind the murders, but the traces clearly lead to Mrs. Sutphin, who gets the nickname "Serial Mom" ​​in the murderous press. Beverly is exposed and brought to justice. Her family, especially her husband Eugene, wants to reach a verdict in which Beverly is condemned as insane. The family feels quite comfortable without their mother as they are treated like stars and a television series with Suzanne Somers is even being planned about the murders. However, Beverly takes on her own defense. She reveals all the weaknesses of the witnesses and thus makes them implausible. The consequence of this is the jury's acquittal. One of the jurors who advocated her acquittal caught Beverly negatively because - contrary to American etiquette - she wears white shoes after Labor Day . Just minutes after her acquittal, Beverly Sutphin uses a telephone receiver to ensure that the jury never does anything like that again.

backgrounds

Originally, Susan Sarandon the role of Beverly Sutphin play their salary demands , however, exceeded the budget of the film of about 13 million US dollars . The film grossed around $ 8 million in US cinemas, which made it a box office flop. In the meantime, however, the film has been shown more frequently on American television on Mother's Day , which has made it more popular. John Waters reported that the production company at times considered not releasing the film in theaters, or only releasing it in a heavily modified form, as it was too brutal and risky for them for a comedy.

In the United States at this time there was an increasing interest in crimes and in particular serial killers, also encouraged by television, which Waters wanted to process satirically with this film. Waters shot the film prior to the famous OJ Simpson trial , but later stated that much of the film had come true in the Simpson trial. In the English original, Waters can be heard as the voice of serial killer Ted Bundy on the tape that Beverly's husband finds in her bedroom.

Reviews

Rotten Tomatoes labels the film with 63 percent positive reviews as "fresh" and awards a red tomato (as of March 2019).

James Berardinelli described the gags on ReelViews as "too strenuous" to be funny. He criticized the presentation of Kathleen Turner as "automated" ("automated"). Berardinelli praised the supporting roles of Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake and Matthew Lillard and the cameo roles of Traci Lords , Suzanne Somers and Patty Hearst .

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on April 15, 1994 that the film was "not particularly funny" ("this isn't very funny"). He wrote that the character played by Kathleen Turner was sympathetic, but not funny, because she was not "cruel" enough for that.

The lexicon of international films wrote: "Double-bottomed" black "comedy of selected, but never end in itself tastelessness, which targets the downside of the middle-class family and suburban idyll as well as the fashionable media mania for pathological murderers. Kathleen Turner covers the lengths of the story with a brilliant comedic performance. "

Prisma Online said: “John Waters staged an extremely comical parody at times with a sure sense of bad taste. The definitive answer to the American serial killer hysteria! Convincing: Kathleen Turner as a murderous mother. "

Awards

Kathleen Turner was nominated for the Chlotrudis Award of the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of Release for Serial Mom - Why doesn't mom let the killing? Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2013 (PDF; test number: 71 330 V).
  2. ↑ Laura Fitzpatrick: Why We Can't Wear White After Labor Day. Time Magazine, September 8, 2009, accessed January 7, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Box office / business for Serial Mom - Why doesn't mom stop killing?
  4. ^ BFI: John Waters introduces Serial Mom | BFI. October 28, 2015, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  5. ^ BFI: John Waters introduces Serial Mom | BFI. October 28, 2015, accessed March 25, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Rotten Tomatoes: Serial Mom
  7. ^ Review by James Berardinelli
  8. ^ Review by Roger Ebert
  9. ↑ Serial Mom - Why doesn't mom stop killing? In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  10. ^ Prism Online