Movie Review: Home Alone

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Yes my friends, its December that its Christmas has upon us, so I felt like to do another Movie Review in Holiday special to take a look at classic movies taken place on Christmas, sure you can have Die Hard that I’ve already covered back in December of 2019, which even though it came out on July, but it said it takes place on Christmas, so it probably counts. But instead of a protagonist holding a gun shooting at terrorists, how we’re back to the beginning of the 90s that it was considered as a Christmas classic films from our childhood.

“Home Alone” is a 1990 Christmas Comedy movie that was directed by Chris Columbus, and produce and written by John Hughes.

The idea of this iconic Christmas movie came from John Hughes when he had a vacation when he had to watch over the kids while preparing for vacation without left one of them in… Well, Home Alone. So I took his idea of what if the kid is left alone in a house to dealing with bandits in eight pages he wrote for screenplay. After been finished working with Vacations movies like “National Lampoon’s European Vacation and his other Christmas classic “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” that he was burnt out to make a movie based on magazine, he wanted to focus on a movie that its completely original with Warner Bros, but he wanted to make a movie in costly budget less than $10M, but it will be difficult from WB’s decision, so Hughes had a secret conversation with 20th Century fox about his project with cutting cost. When the production was about to start that it originally costed $14.7, Warner Bros cut down even lower as $1.2M, which it caused a released memo that the lowest budget like this, it’ll never work for cut cost, leaving WB shutdown the production, but it didn’t last long when 20th Century Fox took over the project with upgraded budget of $18M.

Of course, when this movie came out, it started with a mixed reactions for various reasons. But as time went on, the movie ended up became beloved and became a Christmas classic movies for the cast, the plot, the humor and even a soundtrack from our old friend John Williams. I pretty sure my parents remembered seeing it before I was born like a half decade before my birth, one of my friends remembered it, everybody remembered it, as for me, I think I’ve seen it back in either a school or a camp that I thought it was dumb. But when I grew up and rewatching it either on DVD or Disney+, I easily enjoyed it how fun or even John Hughes’s What if concept of his writing. And yes, im aware that with the movie’s success, there’s always gotta cashing in to make sequels, however, after Home Alone 2, they pretty much made a different casts than bringing back our familiar faces and as I know, they’re all suck (Perhaps? Il let you make a conclusion).

So, with all that said, is Home Alone is still a classic Christmas movie that we all know, or is this film is feels like a humiliating traps?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie being left alone and dealing with bandits its pretty fascinating, but it also has a humor and a good heart.

The movie begins in Christmas part where the McCallister family are hanging out, playing around and eating their supper, but one of them who’s treated like an outcast is little Kevin McCallister, while he wasn’t so sure to be ready for going to Paris to packing up, he was annoyed and ridiculed by almost everyone, including his mean big brother Buzz. The latter of which reached the button that Kevin tried to shoving and also accidentally losing his ticket (And an unfortunate Fuller broken nose, poor him), his mother Kate proceeds to picking Kevin to punishing him to the third floor to bed, despite not able to excepting the damage control, Kevin had enough to wishing his family disappear (Jeez, Kev, that’s kinda harsh). But after the branch fell on the powerline to causing a power outage, the McCallister family are full on alert to leaving him for their trip to Paris very quickly, but one of them who’s left home alone, is Kevin. When our main kid woke up, he noticed everyone is gone without realization, like everything is empty, but apparently, after all the days of being an outcast, Kevin is having fun to hanging around all by home himself in a big house, even if it may not be a good start for being a kid left alone in a house. However, he was watched by the robbers called “Wet Bandits” with Harry and Marv. Its up to Kevin to keeping himself and his home safe against the Wet Bandits.

Though it sounds like a typical story of good kids vs bad adults with the outsmart, traps and humiliations from kids trying to fight back against bad adults, but this one is more into reality, instead of Dennis The Menace like to pulling prank at neighbor Mr. Wilson, here is about a kid dealing with robbers who’re trying to going after his family house, while at the same time, his family left for Paris trip without realization of Kevin’s home alone, even if its problematic, but throughout the movie, Kevin is becoming having fun and humble for being home alone from shopping by himself (though, had a rocky start for accidentally stealing a toothbrush, though he admitted himself for being a robber, but eventually learned in his own grocery shopping), setting up the sets to pretending his family is in a house, and even setting up traps, but im saving The Characters later. Of course, despite its home alone, the movie has a subplot involving Kevin’s mother Kate who’s on full on “panic mode” that she wants to going back to Chicago while being in France pretty briefly, which begs my question “Then why you’re going on a trip to France when you had a problem on Kevin, along with other family members??”, I mean, I know left the kids alone in a house is a problematic, but in real life, there’s always a choice to either let them on a trip or hiring a babysitter, but here, this could be dangerous, but this is a movie, we like to see kids going badass against mean adults like Wet Bandits. In typical Christmas fashion, the movie has a mix of humor and a heart, the humor in this movie is understandably childish, but at least its funny that gave me a chuckle from the climatic traps or even my personal favorite, when he ordered a plain cheese pizza, he uses a soundclip from a fictional movie “Angels of Filthy Souls” (A reference of a real movie from 1938 called “Angels of Dirty Faces”) for not only pay up to get his favorite pizza, but also scare the heck at Pizza Boy or even scaring the bejesus at Wet Bandits with a firecracker act like a Tommy Gun. Man I love this movie’s gag of using a movie within a movie in a humorous way. But, not only it has some funny moments, but it also has a heartfelt moment that sometimes, Kevin or even Kate could also admit for their problem from what happened from previous day of how Kevin is punished for hating his family before admit for being mean that he wants to see his mom and dad again, while Kate is ashamed for what she’s acting at her son with punishment or even getting herself trouble to let him all alone, we all know parenting aren’t as easy for get along, especially starting to losing our touch after the argument, before we can easily admit for being a bad kid or bad parent by next day, its easy to felt guilty for what we’ve done. But another heartfelt inclusion is the same could be said to the neighbor named “Old Man” Marley, even though at first, we theorized that he’s a “serial killer” burned the body, turning ashes as a salt, though as we all know, its all made-up, which we found out that he has a similar problem, mainly had a troubling relation between himself and his son, cause he wants to see his granddaughter in a choir, even though Kevin suggests to reuniting to reconciling after the past years, leaving Marley unsure if he will. I will say, its not easy to feel emotional what we found out, especially that the writing for their characters development is pretty good, even with a choir scene like that, I nearly cried while hearing the truth.

Even though its a standard kid vs mean adult movie, but its the execution of its humor and a heart that made it as pretty good and relatable plot in this movie, even if it didn’t make any sense, but we’ll give a credit from John Hughes’s idea that he’s done funny and heartwarming movie.

The Presentation

For a movie with a not-so cheap budget of $18M, its looks and made nicely done.

First up, its no stranger that since this movie takes place in Illinois. At first, I thought it was filmed in Chicago, but for the sake of the budget, they had to filming in a North Shore village at Winnetka, mainly the main focus is the famous three-story family house at 671 Lincoln Avenue, also known as “Home Alone House”, this is one big house to film, which is no stranger that this house is the main focus to film for our main kid. Like I said, its big and beautiful house and as im writing this, the house is still with us with tourist attraction to this day. Sure, they also take a shortcut without making a mess in a Home Alone House, some shots were filmed in sound stage or in different house, For example, when Kevin runs in neighbor’s house (aka Murphy’s house), they build a basement set on empty swimming pool at New Trier High School, in fact, the filming in New Trier High School was used in several John Hughes movies like Uncle Buck and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, nice touch. Another place in Illinois to film is the church, however, they filmed differently, whereas outdoor is filmed on Trinity United Methodist Church at Wilmette, while the indoor is filmed in Grace Episcopal Church at Oak Park, which is an odd choice, which my guess is for the bigger place to film for the choir. Lastly, they filmed in both places, one is the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago for only four sixteen-hour days to film there (even if filming when The McCallisters running with bumping from extras is a difficulty one to film with numerous takes). However, they also filmed in the same airport in Chicago to imitating Orly Airport in Paris, sure they filmed another airport in Chicago called Meigs Field (as im writing this, Meigs Feild is no longer operated due to demolishing a runaway without telling at Federal Aviation Administration, dammit, former mayor…!). And of course, when they filmed a movie within a movie “Angels of Filthy Souls”, its no stranger they filmed on a desk in black and white presentation with low and wide angles in order to make a reminiscent of old-school gangster movies from the 40s and also making it to “Capture the action as if a child were perceiving it”, the latter of which is exactly what the journalist Darryn King described it.

While the filming is pretty nice presentation to look at, the sets, the setup of traps and some others are a fascination part of of their filming, even if its not easy to get a long from I’ve heard or even the writing. For example, while Macaulay Culkin is there to be filmed, it wasn’t easy to arriving in limited of time due to his young age, especially for filming in early night before 10PM. Even the same could be said when working with Joe Pesci, which is a challenge, since the script isn’t his type for his acting ability, I mean, how many times he’s been into movies with buttload of F-bombs since Goodfellas, eh? I know schedule issue and not a fan of script wasn’t easy for the filming, but sometimes, they had some moment of accidental swearing, despite the film is Rated PG.

Of course, the trap scenes are no stranger to be the climax of the third act, they’re both funny, but also painful to watch. Some traps are (here’s the list);

Wet Stairs (both in front and back doors)

Iron at laundry shoot

A hot front door handle

A sticky stair from the basement with a freakin’ nail (Ohh man, it hurts, but funny with Marv’s reaction and scream)

A back door with a fire torch to Harry’s head (Ahh, classic)

A transparent wrapper that has glue with a fan blowing feathers (talking going “Chicken Party”, eh?)

A Christmas ornaments in front of mirror (Ohh man, this one hurts to watch)

Micro Machines in front of stairs

Two paint cans (though based on contacting to the faces, that could be a brutal damage to the head, including losing Harry’s trusty golden tooth)

A typical rope to tripping down

And a cut the rope off after the zipline.

That’s twelve traps in this movie. While its funny to see, but pulling a stunts from those traps are pretty brutal. Chris Columbus said that it wasn’t funny and hard to watch to praying the stunt performers (Troy Brown and Leon Delaney) to stay alive without brutally getting hurt. They had to wearing harnesses when they were practicing before take them off in a final cut, which we can probably wondering how the stunt performers felt after doing their stunts with booby traps, but kudos to them. But it wasn’t just the stunt performers get to sacrifice from the traps, but there are also an accidental injury, one of which is when Kevin was caught by Wet Bandits, Harry proceeds to biting one of Kevin’s finger, kinda harsh threat to take an actual finger bite, causing Culkin received a scar on one of his finger, even to this day.

And lastly, remember the iconic scene when Kevin put Buzz’s tarantula on Marv’s face, well, Daniel Stern is no stranger to have arachnophobia, when they literally put a real tarantula, although he cannot do a real scream, cause it will scare that tarantula away, which he had to do a dubbing scream, but im sure that tarantula was ok in a filming, even if tarantula really creeping me out.

While the filming is a struggle and a pain, but at least they did a pretty good job for the locations, the slapstick and painful traps and even some memorable moments.

The Characters

With a hug list of characters in this movie, its quite fascinating for the characters, even if they could be cliché for the roles, but they have some likability based on the execution of the writing or even the acting.

Lets start off with the main kid, Kevin McCallister (played then child actor Macaulay Culkin), an 8 year old who just doesn’t like to be an outcast based on his trouble making that he’s been pointed by the siblings or even his parents. But once his parents are gone for Paris trip, he likes to be free of his will to, I assuming like to be adult, even if he’s 8 year old, he likes to eat something, doing some crazy stuff and even going shopping for the sake of missing products for his parents. Sure he may have a problem to his parents, but sometimes, he could change his heart that maybe he admit for being a brat and later doing adult stuff like laundry, dish washing and even the aforementioned shopping. But of course, he later becoming a craft kid for his inventions like using mannequins and cardboard to pretending his parents are in a house and even his climatic traps. Its not hard to see why Kevin is such a memorable kid in many movies for being a hero against adults, and of course, Culkin delivered pretty good of his performance. Sure we all know that as time went on, his life went down from his will substance abuse to weird transitions after retired of acting. But as time went on, he got cleaned and having a fond memory of his time of Home Alone, specially with commercial with Google Assistant to imitating Home Alone, appearing AVGN to getting tortured by questionable bad games loosely based on Home Alone 1 and 2, and recently, with a love and respect of his childhood fame, he got himself a Hollywood Walk of Fame, good for him to have a wonderful coming back.

Next up, we have Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv (played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), these guys are the main villains in the movie for cliché roles, stealing and messing the house during Christmas, but they have a different personalities, Harry is a mean mumbling robber in his cartoonish swearing, while Marv is a messy, attention seeking for crime call and also scaredy cat. These goof robbers are also memorable for their opposite personalities, and both Pesci and Stern did a fun work of their roles, even if Joe Pesci feels like he wasn’t a fan to be in the movie, again, due to the script he got, then again, he was memorable with F-Bombs in Goodfellas that he got an Oscar.

Then we have Old Man Marley (played by the late Robert Blossom), at first glance we thought he’s going to be secondary villain from a made-up history suggesting he’s a murder, turning dead bodies into salt on the icy path and made Kevin scared of him. But as we expected, he was not an evil neighborhood, but rather a lonely old man with a personal tragic from he got bad relationship from his son, especially he wants to see his granddaughter, which is a nice twist for a heartfelt execution and Blossom did a nice work of his performance, even when he’s no longer with us from his death in 2011. Like I said before, its not for trying not to cry from the church scene.

Then there’s the McCallister family, these guys are only shown, but pretty briefly for the focus of Kevin. There are so many family or cousin members, im gonna make a limited pick, but for notable reasons.

There’s Kate (played by Catherine O’Hara), who’s the mother that she was kinda hard on Kevin, but then turning “Panic Mode” on when she realized Kevin is home alone, but il give a credit for Catherine’s performance, even during ceremony of Culkin’s Walk of Fame, she reunited him for what he deserves, Peter (played by the late John Heard) a father who’s… Rather casual, even if he likes to be in Paris vacation, but like Blossom, its too bad Heard did a fun work of his role, but he’s no longer with us from his death in 2017 (R.I.P. man…), Buzz (played by Devin Ratray), who’s Kevin’s older brother who likes to bullying him (Jeez, he’s such a mean brother…!), Linnie (played by Angela Goethals) who’s rather a careless sister, Uncle Frank (played by Gerry Bamman) who’s even more careless than Linnie for being pretty much cranky and selfish, and lastly to be mentioned is Fuller (played by Kieran Culkin, Macaulay’s young brother) who’s a younger brother of the family and its Kieran’s very first acting appearance in this movie.

Last but definitely not the least to be mentioned is Gus Polisnki (played by the late John Candy), a fun loved polka band-mate who helps Kate to bringing her back home over Kevin’s home alone. Like The McCallisters, he has a brief appearance, this was due to Candy’s one day filming based on a favor to John Hughes, cause after all, how many Hughes movies out there that had John Candy? Anyway, on top of short day appearance of filming, he also pretty much improvised in the movie, that’s pretty nice that without the script for him, they just let him doing his own dialogue, nice touch for the late Candy.

While the characters maybe cliché, but the execution of the writing and fun performances what makes the characters good, aside the amount of McCallister family/cousin members.

SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen a movie or didn’t mind.

The movie ‘s third and final is a rollercoaster ride of heartfelt, comedic to heart-warming, but its not stranger the third act is the highlight of this movie.

After hearing Marley’s tragic past and eventually reconciled, along with Kevin’s suggestion to give him a second chance to see his son and his granddaughter, Kevin’s time is up when the Wet Bandits are planned to invading his house on Christmas Eve, so he sets up numerous traps to dealing with. After its all done, at 9pm, the bandits has arrived and Kevin’s outsmart them with humiliating pain of his attack like BB rifle to the crotch (Jeez, Kev) to the forehead.

Harry tries to get in the front door, but first slipped from icy stairs, but once he got his, his hand got burnt from overheating door handle (that scream made me laugh), then tries to going back to the backdoor, but not before gets fried on his head from a fire torch as a flamethrower to the head, until he break in, before got into a not-so harmful trap wrapper glue to puffed in a face with feathers (Talk about made him look like a hotheaded chicken, eh?).

Meanwhile, Marv went down stairs, pretty quickly from, again, icy stairs, but open a door like an idiot (based on thinking its locked), he tried to turn on the light, but instead, he got Iron’d to the face (That might break the skull, or a harsh concussion), he tries to get into sticky stairs, before got a “friendly” impaled from a big nail. (That scream also made me laugh) So he tries to get the other way (after slipped from icy stairs, if he’s trying to get up there) by climbing out of window to trespassing, only to get step in from Christmas ornaments (Jesus!! That’s probably even worse than stepping on Lego bricks).

Once the Wet Bandits are in McCallisters’ house, Kevin still teasing them for the chase, after slipped from Micro Machines, the bandits trying to get after Kev, but Kevin pulls out a Double Tap with two paint cans on both faces, including Harry losing his trusty gold tooth. After Kevin called 911 emergency, he’s on the chase for the 3rd floor after rolling under the suspended rope to knocking down Harry, but Marv got him, but not before Kevin sees Buzz’s tarantula and placing it to Marv’s face with the Best Scream in movie’s history (Oh yeah, this is definitely one of those clip that I can’t help but replaying it, cause its too good to be funny, despite the arachnophobia.). After argument of harming each others, the bandits trying to going after Kevin, only to be late when he uses a bike handle to zip-lining to the treehouse (in a middle of winter), which again, Kevin teases them to catch him, but even too late when he cuts the rope off. The final chase went ahead to Murphy’s house, but the bandits outsmarts Kevin, hang him on a hook for harmful punishment to biting a finger (which again Macaulay got a finger scar from the bite, to this day), but not before they got backstabbed none other than Old Man Marley to save Kevin, and the police are eventually arresting the bandits.

In the end, its Christmas day that Kevin is waiting to see his parents, despite its gonna take a while, right until his mother Kate has finally arrived to eventually reconciled from what happened, not before when the remaining McCallisters are arrived as well for their mourning flight to Chicago. Even though Kevin kept secret about the bandits (minus the gold tooth is picked up by Peter), he checks at the window to see how’s Marley, which it was thankfully work for reconciliation to reuniting his son and get to meet his granddaughter (again, try not to cry over both Kevin and mom’s apology to Marley’s reunite) in a satisfied ending, but not before gets into trouble from Buzz when he messed up his room from before (Whoops…!).

Its pretty fun third and final act we get to see the climatic traps to eventually a heartwarming ending for reconciliation to the parents and celebrating Christmas.

And now for my final opinion of this movie.

Overall, Home Alone is no stranger to be the best Christmas movie, and everyone’s childhood favorite.

Sure, the movie can be slow from the get-go, but at least its pretty good from John Hughes’s outstanding writing, the story is nicely imaginative (even if some moment didn’t make any sense), it has some fun moments, it has a heart, the characters are pretty good (even though if its too much to bare on the list), the presentation looks good too and the acting are also for their deliver and some gave a heartwarming legacy. And I forgot to mention to give a nicely credit for John William’s composure of the movie’s soundtrack.

This is easily a must-watch Christmas movie if you’re in a mood to watching various movies, sure it maybe be as perfect when it came out, but it became beloved in nowadays that it became a classic. I’d say get your friends and family sit together, drinking eggnog to watching this movie either on physical copy or even on Disney+. Cause this movie is a well-deserved classic Christmas movie that we love it.

Im giving this one a 9/10 with the Trophy of Success, cause as always its one of the classic in the beginning of the 90s.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Birthday to Jesus. But of course, il see you guys in 2024, and as always, im Anthony, signing out.