Serial Mom | 1994
- Locations |
- Maryland
- DIRECTOR |
- John Waters
Standing pretty much alone in a genre of its own, the serial killer-feelgood movie, John Waters' best film since his underground trash days, was shot, inevitably, around Baltimore, Maryland – more specifically, the comfy northern suburb of Towson a few miles to the north on York Road.
Towson was the birthplace of John Waters’ collaborator Glenn Milstead aka Divine, as well as Richard Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew, whose portrait graces the movie’s final scene.
The perfect family home where homemaker Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) gleefully torments neighbour Dottie Hinkle (Mink Stole) with obscene phone calls, is 600 Lake Drive, just north of the Country Club of Maryland. The harassed Dottie lives a few doors along at 618 Lake Drive.
A little to the west is the school where Beverly has a bit of a disagreement with her son Chip’s (Matthew Lillard) maths teacher, which is Towson High School, 69 Cedar Avenue at Aigburth Road.
Gore-fan Chip works in a video store – where you neglect to rewind at your peril. DVDs thankfully don’t need to be rewound, but you can still sample VHS tapes (alongside DVD) at Video Americain, 400 West Cold Spring Lane, to the south of Towson. Apart from the Baltimore, location, Video Americain also has a store in Takoma Park, MD, each branch holding an inventory of between 20 and 30,000 videos and DVDs.
The congregation is horrified as Beverly arrives tailed by a procession of police cars at the Church of the Good Shepherd, 1401 Carrollton Avenue in Towson. Amid the chaos, Beverly manages to elude the cops.
She’s finally arrested at a Camel Lips gig at Hammerjacks, a venue which stood underneath I-395 at 1101 South Howard Street, before being demolished in 1997 to make way for the M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens. The stadium itself went on to become a movie location, for 2000’s The Replacements, with Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves.
Beverly’s fame as ‘Serial Mom’ blossoms with her trial, and inevitable acquittal, at Baltimore County Courthouse, 400 Washington Avenue, Towson. Now there’s just the problem of those white shoes after Labor Day...
