If ever a film review deserved the headline “Bebitched,” it is Elizabeth Montgomery’s Sins of the Mother (1991). Adapted from Jack Olsen’s true crime novel Son: A Psychopath and His Victims, Sins does for motherhood what Montgomery’s The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) did for daughters.
Wooing her son one minute, tearing him to shreds the next, her Ruth Coe has the colorful vocabulary of Moira Rose; the histrionic tendencies of Rose and Lucille Bluth; and enough sinister Cluster B features to fuel an HBO limited series. On a cinematic scale of mother-son immorality, ranging from Psycho to Savage Grace to Ma Mère, Ruth’s relationship with son Kevin (Dale Midkiff of Back to You and Me) is mercifully mild. They are, in some ways, a more respectable version of con artists Lilly and Roy from The Grifters.
With their bantering and cooing while dancing together at social functions, Ruth and Kevin (who she calls “Coco”) are easily mistaken for lovers. When he drops Mom off at home after an office party and plans to continue his evening without her, she becomes short-tempered and possessive. We aren’t exactly surprised when, before he leaves, they share a lingering kiss on the lips.
Kevin, we also couldn’t help but notice, was conspicuously silent when his mother and docile stepfather, Gordon (Richard Roat), argued about a segment on the evening news. “I can’t bear it!” Ruth says, snapping off the TV in the middle of a report about an attempted rape. “It’s unconscionable that in today’s society the tragedy of rape continues to proliferate unchecked. Why must women suffer this terrible violation?” (She’ll sing a shockingly different tune later in the film.)
“The woman apparently got away, Ruth,” Gordon, a newspaperman, unhelpfully clarifies.
“Others haven’t been so lucky!” she replies. “Oh, I know you’d never publish a word about rape and sully the Christian image of Spokane. But some madman is on the loose out there and every woman in South Hill knows it.”
The increasingly violent attacks in South Hill coincide with Ruth and Kevin’s dustups. Whether they’re arguing about his directionless career in real estate or his failed marriage, Ruth’s always primed to draw blood. (“An occasional whore would have been a far better choice!” she snaps about his ex.) She eagerly inserts herself into his conflicts with others, defending him publicly and savaging him in private.
“He’s an utter fool. A cipher,” she says dismissively of his former boss. “We needn’t concern ourselves with the Brodys of the world.” After lulling Kevin into a false sense of security, she pounces: “The problem, dear, is you have no character. It’s something I have finally faced, and we must do something about it now.” Her delusions of grandeur are shared by her son, a vain and lazy overgrown child who spends more time cultivating a slick image than actually working.
After one of Ruth’s savage dressings-down, Kevin quietly seethes, whispering “You rotten bitch!” She hears him, and smiles, as she walks away. Then the South Hill rapist strikes again. “Forty-one women have been raped! There are probably more,” Detective Liz Trent (Talia Balsam) vents to her lieutenant (Jimmie Ray Weeks).
“We have never faced anything like this in Spokane,” he tells her. “The mechanism isn’t there, the mentality isn’t there. The captain told me the best way for women to handle rape was just lay back and enjoy it.” When she complains that bureaus aren’t sharing information, he merely suggests using decoys, male officers dressed as women.
It is Kevin’s hubris that finally lands him on police radar (scheming Ruth meets a similar fate), but not before the FBI weighs in. The profiler notes his “special hatred for medium-sized, dark-haired women.” They also suggest he’s “totally dominated by someone, possibly a parent,” and that his victims are stand-ins for that person.
The Coe case was unquestionably brutal and bizarre, as the Washington Post review of Olsen’s book notes. Richard Fielder’s screenplay tries to retain as much of that strangeness as possible, but it lacks cohesion. One of the worst disruptors of the film’s flow is Kevin’s quasi-romance with the meek, enigmatic Ginny (Heather Fairfield). It sops up too much screen time without providing a dramatic payoff. (Mimi Kennedy, also of Thin Ice, could’ve done more as Kevin’s lawyer instead. Instead she shows up as an afterthought.) But it’s good for one strange laugh.
In her first meeting with Ginny, Ruth inexplicably pretends to be a Southern belle. I kept waiting for her to say “fiddle-dee-dee” as she sat there, dressed like a Party City version of Scarlett O’Hara for no apparent reason. Midkiff is believable as a vacuous young man who inherited his mother’s worst qualities, but he doesn’t quite sell Kevin’s darkness or depravity. Montgomery, on the other hand, has perversity to spare. Her barbed tongue wounds from a mile away and even her hair is angry, with severe curls that seem to snarl.
Programming Note: Mother’s Day Marathon
This review is part of our 2022 Mother’s Day Marathon feature. We’ll add more films throughout the week and you can click here for more information.
Streaming and DVD availability
Sins of the Mother is currently out-of-print on DVD. It can be streamed on the free, ad-supported platforms Tubi and Freevee.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
… But wait, there’s more!
This is normally where I’d detail Richard Roat’s appearances on The Golden Girls. His first episode, “In a Bed of Rose’s” (S1E15), was a classic in which, for the second time in Rose’s life, a man died after sleeping with her. In his second episode, “The Case of the Libertine Belle” (S7E2), he played Blanche’s boss Kendall, who had a trick up his sleeve at a murder mystery weekend getaway.
Rather than delve deeper into that, I’d like to mention another TV movie about a nutty mom, Mother Knows Best. That 1997 murder comedy, starring Joanna Kerns, seemed to take some inspiration from Sins of the Mother. It’s not just that both women wear leopard print, or that they’re stylishly appointed while arranging murders for hire. (Montgomery dons a cloak for that task, while Kerns favors a headscarf and trench coat.) They are also shameless social strivers with impassive husbands and a killer lack of boundaries.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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