Real Life Movies. Gangsters, fighters, athletes, serial killers, celebrities and so much more–these films are the best of the based-on-a-true-story stories.
Serial Mom was released theatrically in the United States on April 13, 1994 to mixed to positive reviews from critics, but was a box office bomb, grossing nearly $8 million from a $13 million budget. The film is widely regarded as a cult classic.

Beverly Sutphin is a serial killer and the protagonist villain of the classic 1994 dark comedy film Serial Mom. She is the wife of a dentist Dr. Eugene Sutphin and has two teenage children Misty and Chip. She stays at home as a housewife while her husband works. Beverly kills people who she thinks that did her and her family wrong. She was portrayed by Kathleen Turner, who also played Dr.

Serial Mom: How John Waters Predicted True Crime’s Morbid Appeal

May 7, 2020 By

When shooting Serial Mom in Baltimore’s suburbs early in 1994, director John Waters – the celebrated, if not worshiped King of Filth – acted as a soothsayer of sorts, predicting the media frenzy that would envelope North Americans later that year. He also satirized the obsession with true crime that is currently at its zenith. Coronated with various loving monikers, such as “The Duke of Dirt,” “The Pope of Trash,” “The Prince of Puke,” and the “Ayatollah of Assholes,” Waters’s unique brand of distaste applied throughout his life and filmography to an obsession with serial killers. He positions the entire film, with its disingenuous opening text, as a true crime tale, despite clearly being a work of fiction. And if Serial Mom, starring Hollywood A-lister Kathleen Turner, was a more PG family-friendly entry for Waters (comparatively, remember that his first bonafide hit, 1972’s Pink Flamingoes notoriously concluded with its star Divine ingesting dog feces), it nevertheless exudes its director’s patented trashiness.

As was commonplace with all Waters’s films, Serial Mom is set just outside Baltimore, in the middle-class suburb of Towson, where family matriarch Beverly Sutphin (Turner) cares for her family with domestic prowess. Her dentist husband (Law & Order’s Sam Waterston) is doting, and her children, Misty (played by Ricki Lake of Waters’s 1984 Hairspray) and Chip (Matthew Lillard in his first credited screen role), represent the average American teenager. When her neighbourhood is scandalized by a rash of dirty prank calls, Beverly pretends to be shocked only to reveal to the audience (but not yet her family), that she is the telephone bandit. With a rigid moral code, Beverly anonymously dispenses justice for seemingly minor faux pas (wearing white after Labour Day, snatching parking spaces at the grocery store, improper recycling habits), but as the perceived indignities are aimed at her family, the violence escalates and Beverly turns Lizzie Borden in defense of her family. When a math teacher questions the mental stability of Chip – a result of his obsession with slasher films – Beverly runs him over with her car. When Misty is stood up by her boyfriend, her mother murders him with a fire poker in a public restroom. Subsequent murders ensue involving scissors, air conditioners, and butcher’s knives, meanwhile the town and the Sutphin family realize the truth behind the grizzly crimes. If Beverly starred in her own mid-century sitcom, it would be “Leave it to Cleaver.”

1994 was a memorable year in the annals of American true crime. The murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in June of that year (Serial Mom was released in April) made headlines around the world, as did OJ Simpson’s subsequent attempted Ford Bronco escape, trial and eventual acquittal. What evolved throughout those years, and years subsequent, was an unprecedented media frenzy. It was deemed the “trial of the century” for the shocking brutality at the hands of an American football hero (and B-film actor) alleged by the prosecutors, its twists and turns in court, and its tragically unsatisfying verdict. The trial in Serial Mom, despite the film being written and produced well in advance of the Simpson case, mimics the real-life frenzy of 1994 and 1995. With her mother on trial, Misty even makes t-shirts to sell outside the courtroom (as happened to much distaste at the Simpson trial). Even Suzanne Somers makes a cameo appearance as the actress poised to play Beverly in the true crime movie of the week. At the heart of Waters’s trashiness is always satire – and most often, as is the case with Serial Mom, razor sharp satire. Waters, as a true crime aficionado himself, understands the appeal of grizzly, unimaginable human tragedy, and unsurprisingly, he riddles Serial Mom with dozens of references to murder and crime sprees, both in real-life and imagined. What follows is a Waters-approved top hits in True Crime history:

PATTY HEARST (1954–)

Alleged Crime: Armed Robbery, 1974. Tried and convicted in 1976.

The granddaughter of famed newspaper magnate William Randolf Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and held captive for over a year. They forced her to rob a bank and she was later caught by police. At trial she described her rape and brainwashing, but the prosecution argued she joined the SLA of her own accord. She was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison until President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence (later President Clinton granted her a pardon). Hearst’s trial was the “trial of the century” prior to the OJ Simpson case, creating an international media frenzy.

Serial Mom connection: A close friend of Waters, she plays a juror in Beverly Sutphin’s case. Convinced of Beverly’s innocence she enrages the murderess for wearing white shoes after Labour Day.

TED BUNDY (1946–1989)

Crime: The murder of at least 30 women (more assumed). Tried and convicted in 1978.

One of the most notorious and publicized of serial killers, Bundy is most often noted for his charming appeal and ability to manipulate women that he had intimate, longstanding relationships with. He denied the murder of 30 women for nearly a decade before confessing in 1989, just shortly before his execution. Some experts believe him responsible for the killings of over 100 people.

Serial Mom connection: Beverly Sutphin hides cassettes tapes of Bundy’s messages to her sent from prison. When her husband discovers them and listens to the intimate missives, it’s the voice of John Waters acting as Bundy.

CHARLES MANSON (1934–2017)

Crime: First-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people. Tried and convicted in 1971.

Probably the most notorious serial killer in history – Manson formed a cult that was responsible for several murders, including the Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969. John Waters has befriended several Manson Family women, whom he strongly believes should be released from prison.

Serial Mom connection: While searching through the Sutphin garbage, detectives discover Beverly’s copy of Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, one of the bestselling true crime novels of all time, written by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry and published in 1974.

THE HILLSIDE STRANGLER aka Kenneth Bianchi (1951–) and Angelo Buono Jr. (1934–2002)

Crime: Charged collectively with ten counts of murder, plus an additional three murders for Bianchi. Tried and convicted in 1980. A love supreme 2.0 zip file.

The murders of the Hillside Strangler were discovered to have been perpetrated by two cousins, but police withheld the dual nature of the perpetrator from media. Bianchi and the much younger Buono Jr. terrorized the Los Angeles area in 1977 and 1978, murdering 10 women between the ages of 12 and 28.

Serial Mom connection: Chip Sutphin asks his mother if she’s ever heard of the Hillside Strangler early in the film after reading about Bianchi’s achievement of a college degree from prison.

Richard Speck (1941–1991)

Crime: Eight counts of murder. Tried and convicted in 1967.

Speck broke into a student nurse dormitory in Chicago, holding 8 student nurses captive, and systematically tortured and murdered each, one-by-one in July 1966. A ninth woman was able to successfully hide under one of the beds where the nurses were held captive. Speck was sentence to the death penalty, but the ruling was overturned.

Serial Mom True Story