At 30, Home Alone is all grown up — but still great childish fun
Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) is left Home Alone
A precocious eight-year-old develops a murderous streak after his family forgets to bring him on holiday. Whatever way you look at it, that’s the premise (well, sort of) at the heart of John Hughes and Chris Columbus’s — an absurd home-invasion flick all dressed up as a wholesome yuletide comedy.
Released in cinemas 30 years ago this month, Hughes’s holiday masterwork — one-part , two-parts — came about when he least expected it. The story goes that Hughes, the Hollywood king of 1980s teen comedy, was packing for a vacation when a peculiar thought crossed his mind. “[I was] making a list of everything I didn’t want to forget”, he’d later recall. “I thought, ‘Well, I’d better not forget my kids.’ Then I thought, ‘What if I left my 10-year-old son at home? What would he do?’”
Hughes went to work. Within a couple of weeks, he had a screenplay. Eventually, he found a director, turning to scribe and chief, Chris Columbus, to take control of the reins. After a spot of studio trouble ( was originally a Warner Bros picture, but the money men legged it after budget increases), the boys found a home at 20th Century Fox.
Casting was crucial. Almost immediately, Hughes informed his team that he’d found their lead — a wee young fella by the name of Macaulay Culkin, who’d impressed everyone on the set of his 1989 comedy, Uncle Buck. Columbus, however, felt it was his “directorial responsibility” to meet with other actors. Two hundred auditions later, he finally came back to Hughes’s first choice. A child star was born.
Everything rested on Culkin’s shoulders. He had to be cute but real — endearing yet mischievous. As it turned out, the lad was a natural and, though he’d eventually turn his back on the madness of Hollywood, in 1990, Culkin was as charming and as charismatic as the best of them.
He was the perfect fit for Kevin McCallister, son of Chicago suburbanites, Peter (John Heard) and Kate (Catherine O’Hara). You know the drill. On the eve of a Christmas vacation to Paris, poor Kevin is banished to the attic after spoiling a family dinner. The following morning, mum, dad, brothers, sisters, and a small army of relatives are in such a rush to get to the airport that they accidentally leave their youngest behind.
When Kevin wakes, he is startled to discover that the wish he’d made the night before — to be rid of his horrid parents and his butthead brother, Buzz — came true. The reality frightens him, but it also fills him with delight, and our exuberant protagonist makes the most of a free gaff. Alas, there is a fly in the ointment. Enter the ‘Wet Bandits’: a dopey duo of burglars who have their sights set on the McCallister household.
Of course, Daniel Stern was terrific as Marv, one half of the Bandits, but would be nothing without the inimitable Joe Pesci as Harry, his hot-headed partner-in-crime. Pesci was fresh off the set of and struggling to comprehend a screenplay that prohibited him from using foul language.
In the end, a grumbling Pesci decided to take a more family-friendly route. He called it “cartoon cursing”, with the bloke channelling his inner Looney Tunes (notably, Yosemite Sam) to convey a sense of playful menace. It worked.
Now, it’s arguable that at least one of the booby traps Kevin sets to ward off his intruders would almost certainly result in death, but again, the beauty of ’s astonishingly violent third act is that it does, in fact, play out like a cartoon. The goodie arms himself with paint cans, firearms, and a tarantula. The baddies threaten to burn the boy’s head with a blowtorch.
And yet, the follow-through is so chaotic, so barmy and so memorably sound tracked by the great John Williams, that Columbus’s picture somehow manages to stay inside the margins of its PG certificate. It’s a comedy first, but it’s also a wonderful fantasy, told from the perspective of a child who conquers his greatest fear and goes above and beyond to protect his family’s wonderland mansion from the dim-witted boogeymen outside.
Funny, subversive and surreal, stayed in cinemas long after the decorations came down, spending 12 weeks atop the US box office and grossing an eye-watering $467m worldwide. It wasn’t all plain sailing. At one stage, French film-maker, Rene Manzor, threatened legal action, believing Hughes had essentially remade his 1989 horror thriller, , about a boy who defends his home from a killer dressed as Santa Claus (the case never went to court).
Critics were divided — some thought it funny and well-acted; others labelled it flat and implausible.
Still, it was a proper Hollywood phenomenon; a dazzling and, occasionally, dizzying feature that captured the hearts and imaginations of audiences, young and old.
Of course, what separates from a plethora of sequels, reboots and copycats, is its heart.
Remember Old Man Marley, Kevin’s elderly neighbour? Indeed, Marley (Roberts Blossom) was a last-minute addition to proceedings. Though Kevin believes the auld codger to be a serial killer (thanks a lot, Buzz), the truth is that Marley is a harmless old man who fell out with his son and, in the film’s finest scene, he advises young Kevin on the importance of family.
Marley is, essentially, the Christmas ghost in a story that, though loaded to the gills with slapstick, retains an almost Dickensian spirit and poignancy. It’s a classic morality tale. It sent Culkin into the stratosphere and back (the chap recently turned 40 and continues to lampoon his most famous character online).
It’s currently the subject of a questionable remake at Disney. But nothing can come close to the original.
