Serial Mom reads like old warmed over John Waters themes – the gleeful rebellion against all that is considered good taste, the glorification of criminal celebrity. But rarely does any of it rise above the feeling of tired, been-there-before familiarity in the ground it is treading. And there is not even really the grotesque outrages of Divine eating doggy poo to give the film a perverse kick. And unfortunately by the time that Serial Mom arrived on the scene the whole satiric theme of the media obsession with serial killers had been done by Natural Born Killers (1994) and Waters’ rehash of it comes across surprisingly dull. Which is a shame as Waters has been mining the whole theme of the media glorification of criminals and mass murderers long before O.J. madness was even a morbid glimmer in anybody’s eye. (Waters once made the claim that he regarded going to criminals trials as a spectator sport, as a perverse inversion of Hollywood celebrity – and indeed these days he casts former abductee/terrorist Patty Hearst in most of his films).

Serial Mom is further undone by an unfocused script – the reason for Kathleen Turner’s killings seems to be taken for granted, construed as no more than series of sarcastic attacks on the petty-minded. There are a few moments when the film does come to life with the old John Waters maniacal gleam – the image of Kathleen Turner trying to shake one victim’s liver off a poker; a scene where she torches Justin Whalin while an all-girl grunge group called The Camel Tips play and the audience applaud; the bashing in of one woman’s head with a joint of meat while she watches Annie (1982) on video. Kathleen Turner gets into the role with glee – although it is one of Turner’s more arch readings and she hardly convinces as a normal housewife. Waters assembles many regulars from previous films – Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Traci Lords, Patty Hearst and now mega-famous talkshow host Ricki Lake who Waters gave her first acting break.