As far as the films of John Waters go, Serial Mom is one of his tamer efforts - there's nothing as outright gross as the feces-eating of Pink Flamingos or the live chicken decapitation from Mondo Trasho. That said, the "pope of trash" hasn't gone entirely soft on his audience in Serial Mom, and a few scenes are guaranteed to have you grimacing or laughing uncomfortably, depending on how strong your constitution is. Kathleen Turner plays the mom in question, the suburban housewife who leads a double life as a psychopath who likes to make obscene phone calls and murder anyone who gets on her nerves. It's Turner's best performance by far, and Waters draws plenty of satire as the corpses pile up. It might not be his most subversive film of all time but it's certainly his most accessible and laugh out loud funny.
