A Gross-Out ‘Serial Mom’ : <i> In “Serial Mom,” the perfect, suburban wife and mother of two teen-agers is eventually put on trial for half a dozen grisly murders of townsfolk whose offenses range from dumping her daughter to wearing white shoes after Labor Day. (Rated R.)</i>

She wears shirtwaist dresses at breakfast, won’t allow gum or the word hate to be used in her perfectly appointed home. But the minute after waving her well-fed family off in the morning, she picks up the phone, dials a neighbor who once took her parking space and showers her with obscenities.

Later, she goes to a PTA conference at school, brings her son’s math teacher a home-baked fruitcake, then after he suggests the child get therapy for a morbid interest in sick horror films, runs him down in her station wagon.

After that, she goes home, says her prayers, jumps into bed with her dentist husband for a noisy bout of hot sex to the disgust of her two children, who hear it all.

And that’s just the beginning.

Interestingly enough, most of the kids at a Sunday matinee of this film said it wasn’t even their idea to come see this gross-out satire--it was their parents’. Those who looked to be still in kindergarten could be heard asking questions about the action or the dialogue throughout. Older ones laughed some, said they thought it was funny, but conceded--along with some parents--that perhaps it was basically adult fare.

“It’s kind of violent,” said Chris Beach, 14. “It’s got a lot of bad words. If they cut some of the bad words, maybe kids would be able to see it.”

His mother, Betty White, said the movie was raunchier than she had been led to expect. No matter how much you know they know about sex, it’s still hard to feel comfortable sitting next to your children during a scene of a teen boy masturbating under the covers to a porn video, even if you are laughing the next minute at his expression when the police break in by mistake.

Here’s an R-rating that’s well deserved.

“If I had known the contents, I probably would not have taken him,” White said. Retorted Chris: “It doesn’t matter. My dad would bring me anyway.” So much for parenting in the ‘90s.

Adults got a few laughs, mostly at the lines and their delivery by Kathleen Turner as the mom, and Sam Waterston as her dentist husband. There was also a lot of head shaking and “Jeez” comments at the true-to-life greed of the victims and family who hired agents and sold “Serial Mom” T-shirts to capitalize on their instant fame.

One customer, buying a “Serial Mom” T-shirt from the accused’s children, says: “I wish they had something like this at the Kennedy kid’s trial.”

Suzanne Somers even plays herself as an actress lined up to play the serial mom on TV.

But many of the news-based jokes were bound to fly over the heads of the kids. Few could be expected to appreciate the novelty of Patty Hearst playing the white-shoed Juror No. 8 who pleads for her life after being cornered in a phone booth by Turner with: “No, please, fashion has changed!”

Chris admitted he didn’t know who Patty Hearst is.

And it would not be surprising if they were disturbed by Turner’s lightning-flash personality changes and the gruesome murders. In one, she stabs a boy in the back as he is using a urinal and pulls out his dripping liver.

Still, some of the kids like that kind of stuff.

“It was funny,” said Rachel DuBruyane, 14. Particularly, she said, “when she ran the teacher over.” Natch.

Chris liked the scene in a nightclub where female singers in a grunge band spit alcohol on the flaming back of a boy Turner has set afire.

He said he also laughed when Turner fought with Somers over position in front of the TV cameras.

“I liked what she said: ‘This is not my good side.’ ”

It wasn’t all that violent, he said, noting after all that it is a parody.

“It’s not like ‘Boyz N the Hood.’ ”