YMMV / Home Alone

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Home Alone | Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | Home Alone 3 | Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House | Home Alone: The Holiday Heist | Home Sweet Home Alone

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• Accidental Aesop: Be respectful to your pizza delivery boy.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • If you're a parent, Kate harassing the airport employees and patrons in the first film (not so much the hotel employees in the second, as they actively antagonized Kevin) is acceptable because she just wants to get home to her son. If you work with the public, she's an asshole, with or without a vulnerable kid stuck at home.
  • Harry's disgust at Marv flooding the houses they rob. Does he hate it because Even Evil Has Standards, or is he worried that Marv doing so will lead them into getting caught?
• And You Thought It Would Fail:
  • According to Chris Columbus, during an interview with Alec Baldwin on Baldwin's podcast Here's the Thing, John Heard was unhappy about working on the film, feeling that the film was going to be terrible. However, upon seeing the finished film and its subsequent success, Heard apologized to Columbus when they were shooting his scenes on the film's sequel, having broken character before his first take to tell Columbus. Columbus says he still has footage of Heard's apology on video tape.
  • Neither Daniel Stern nor Joe Pesci expected the film to be nearly as successful as it ended up being.
• Applicability: A big part of the film's enduring appeal. Despite being quite openly intended as an escapist fantasy for children (and a fable illustrating the importance of family), its story also does a surprisingly good job of capturing the anxieties of young adulthood—since it's ultimately all about a child living on his own for the first time, and navigating the perils of a big and scary world without his parents to help him. The many scenes of Kevin going through the motions of being a grown-up (shopping and cooking for himself for the first time, enjoying his first real taste of freedom, and even sleeping in his parents' bedroom) will likely resonate with many twenty-somethings trying to get the hang of "adulting".
• Can't Un-Hear It: Once you've seen the movie, try hard not to imagine Kevin's scream while listening to The Drifters' version of "White Christmas".
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Kevin and his family are equally at fault: Kevin was being a brat when his parents told him nicely to pack his suitcase while stressing about the trip and not glue up his dad's fishing hooks, and Kate missed the whole debacle with the pizzas to send Kevin to the attic without dinner while being unsympathetic when he says everyone hates him. (In particular, callously noting maybe he should ask Santa for a different family.) They both suffer karma as a result: Kevin realizes that being on his own isn't that great when you have to do all the chores and groceries with dangerous men breaking into your house, and the whole family sans Buzz feels super guilty when they realize Kevin's still in Chicago. Kate goes Oh, Crap! when she remembers mid-flight ("KEVIN!") and My God, What Have I Done? since the last thing he said to her was he didn't want to see any of them again. She makes up for it by flying home immediately, and most of his siblings can't sleep out of worry about their little brother. Meanwhile, Kevin destroys Buzz's room, stealing his money and rifle, which seems like a fair punishment for Buzz getting him in trouble and eating his dinner.
  • While Kevin's later pranks seem disproportionate after Harry and Marv break into the house, he manages to give the latter a harmless scare by playing the mobster video and using firecrackers to sell the effect, on seeing Marv investigating the kitchen dog door. It is satisfying to see Marv running for his life.
  • Old Man Marley slamming Marv and Harry with a shovel after they were planning to torture Kevin is definitely what they deserved.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Kate is in shock after learning they left Kevin behind. Frank tries to comfort her by reminding her it could have been worse. He forgot his reading glasses.
  • Gus's story about leaving his kid in a funeral parlor.
    Gus: You know, we went back at night, and apparently he had been alone all day with the corpse. He was okay, though. After six, seven weeks, he came around and started talking again.
  • Johnny the gangster murdering one of his colleagues? Horrifying. His over-the-top laughter as he blows Snakes away? Hilarious.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing:
  • The movie is supposed to be about Kevin learning An Aesop about how he needs his family and should learn to appreciate them, but the main thing most people remember from it is how awesome all the stuff Kevin gets up to while his family is away looks.
  • Despite Kevin's attack on the burglars being the most prominent part of the movie, many people seem to forget Kevin lost his confrontation with the burglars and had to be bailed out by Old Man Marley.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Gus Polinski. Even people who don't like the film enjoy John Candy's performance.
  • Kevin's sisters and cousin Fuller get some appreciation for being decently acted, and showing some concern for him and/or sharing in the childish glee of Christmas.
  • Johnny from Angels With Filthy Souls, purely due to his Ax-Crazy nature and his penchant for Bond One Liners. Quite a few people didn't realize on first viewing that the clip isn't an actual old time film noir and was made for this movie.
• Escapist Character: A lot of what made the film so much of a hit with kids is that Kevin is something of an ideal. He gets all the comforts of a big fancy house full of toys to himself, but never has to compromise his nature as a kid to do so. He's smart enough to outfox a pair of Stupid Crooks, only having any issue in the end of the climax. And he has a near-complete level of agency, actively choosing to take part in everything he does from the moment he gets left home. There's a reason that the following years were positively dotted with kids being thrust into positions of unusual power and defeating or outwitting adults.
• Fanon:
  • Kevin's (unintentional) theft at the pharmacy is never brought up again despite lingering chances that the police might be able to identify and send him to juvenile detention as he continues to roam around town unsupervised. There's a generally accepted theory among fans that it was Old Man Marley himself who paid for the stolen toothbrush, apologized on Kevin's behalf, and begged the store owner not to press charges, having understood why Kevin ran away. Given the kind of person Marley turns out to be, this isn't far-fetched at all.
  • Some like to assume that Old Man Marley helped Kevin clean up the house before the family returned home. Particularly, cleaning up the tar on the basement stairs.
• First Installment Wins: Although the second film is well-regarded among fans of the franchise, the first film had the biggest impact financially, critically, and culturally.
• Fourth Wall Myopia: The officer gives the house a cursory glance and declares it to be secure - which people often considered to be an example of Adults Are Useless and idiot police. Except in-universe, he can't exactly barge in without a warrant - which he doesn't have - therefore him suggesting "Count your kids again" actually is justified in-universe.
• Fridge Logic: It's heavily implied that Kevin was somehow able to set up his trap house in under an hour between 8pm and 9pm. Maybe the traps alone would be doable within that timeframe, but the fact that Kevin also had to race home from the church, think and draw up a battle-plan before placing said traps, and even had some spare time at the end to cook some microwave mac-and-cheese, shoves a lot into just one hour.
• Genius Bonus: In the opening scene, Kevin complains about not being allowed to watch Angels With Filthy Souls, since "It isn't even rated R!" The MPAA's film rating system wasn't introduced until 1968, meaning that Angels With Filthy Souls (a pastiche of 1930s gangster movies) would have been made before the "R" rating even existed.
• Genre Turning Point: The first movie made live-action family-oriented filmmaking a much more attractive proposition for studios, in tandem with the animation revival the previous year's The Little Mermaid inspired.
• Ham and Cheese: Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern felt indifferent about the movie's potential during shooting, so they intentionally gave over-the-top performances, neither one of them believing the film would become a massive success.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In the first film, when talking to Marley, who mentions his strained relationship with his son, Kevin says that no matter how mad he were at his father, he would still talk to him, especially around the holidays. In real life, Macaulay Culkin has had a very strained relationship with his infamous Stage Dad, to the point that the two no longer speak.
  • Buzz is a Big Brother Bully to Kevin, to the extent where Kevin expects Buzz to pound him for going through his stuff. This hits pretty hard after Devin Ratray's (Buzz's actor) domestic abuse arrest in December 2021. What adds to it is Kevin looking at a picture of Buzz's (unattractive) girlfriend in that movie and exclaiming "Buzz, your girlfriend! Woof!"
  • At one point, Peter is struggling to talk to a Frenchman who doesn't speak English, before losing his patience and delivering this gem: "I'm looking for my son! You know where he is?!" Peter knows exactly where Kevin is, having only said it due to the stress. In the next film, Peter really doesn't know where his son is.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Kevin ends up letting his macaroni and cheese get cold while enacting his one-boy defense of the house, leading to many people questioning what happened with it and if Kevin even got to eat the macaroni. Apparently, Google thought the same thing; in 2018, they released an ad where Macaulay Culkin is about to eat the same dish, only to see the clock ring nine times and hearing Harry and Marv drive up. Culkin just asks Google Home to run Operation Kevin — lock all the doors, turn on the lights, and run the Roomba with a basketball athlete cutout — and happily finishes his meal. You can't blame Culkin for looking smug.
  • Two years after the first movie, Hillary Wolf (Megan) would star in another film about a dysfunctional family, Big Girls Dont Cry They Get Even. In that movie, she's the Butt-Monkey of a dysfunctional family and runs away.
  • The movie is partly a Be Careful What You Wish For story, with Culkin's character, at least for a while, believing his wish was granted. He's wrong here, but come next year...
• Informed Wrongness: It's debatable as to how wrong Uncle Frank was meant to be, but at the beginning of the first movie, his not letting Kevin watch a violent gangster movie is treated as another example as to why he's a terrible uncle even though Kevin later watches said movie and ends up getting the fright of his life. It can come off less like another example of Uncle Frank being a Jerkass and more him trying to prevent Kevin from being traumatized.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Buzz and Uncle Frank are probably the two most universally despised characters in the film for their callous treatment of Kevin—despite the actual villains being a pair of remorseless criminals who regularly vandalize homes and fully intend to torture an eight-year-old boy.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The traps are by far the most popular part of the film.
• Narm:
  • The scene where Kevin meets Marley outside of his house for the first time. It's meant to serve as a reminder that Kevin shouldn't tempt fate, but his over-the-top screaming makes it hard to take seriously.
  • The line "Feeling that gingerbread feeling" in "Somewhere In Your Memory".
• Narm Charm: Angels With Filthy Souls is incredibly over-the-top and violent. But the black and white coloring, setting, and sound made it seem like an authentic old gangster film to moviegoers.
• Nausea Fuel: Buzz telling Kevin that someone would have to barf up his pizza because it's been eaten already. Then he pretends to throw it up.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Mitch Murphy is one of the reasons Kevin is left behind. He bothers the shuttle drivers by asking about the speeds on their vans and rifles through the family's suitcases, which leads him to getting mistaken for Kevin from behind.
  • Jimmy, the stock boy at the pharmacy. He's on screen ten seconds tops but is widely remembered for being told to "Stop that boy!" and his one line: "Hey! Hey! Shoplifter!"
  • The check-out girl at the grocery store who suspiciously questions Kevin. She's completely in the right to wonder about an eight-year-old boy apparently shopping alone, but rather than openly confront him she simply asks him plenty of intelligent questions, and her wry tone and facial expressions make the scene incredibly memorable, as does how well Kevin holds his own in responding to her, ending with refusing to give her his address because she's a stranger.
  • Technically a Two-Scene Wonder: John Candy as Gus Polinski, Polka King of the Midwest. He only has about five minutes of screentime, but he makes the most of those five minutes with some of the movie's funniest lines, nearly all of which were improvised. He's also well-loved for being a Heroic Bystander and helping Kate get back to Chicago when it seemed like all hope was lost.
  • The Mall Santa Kevin encounters is remembered for being a decent guy despite being in a not-decent situation.
  • Angels With Filthy Souls is memorable for being a surprisingly good take on gangster movies.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Wallace Wells/Roman Roy used to be a bed-wetter.
  • Kevin's other cousins included Phoebe, Ruth Ann Torkelson, and Lester Averman.
  • Hope Davis of American Splendor and Synecdoche, New York is the American Airlines clerk in France.
  • One of Kevin's older brothers is Big Pete Wrigley.
  • The cop in Family Crisis Intervention would eventually move to Greenwich Village below Monica Geller.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, this was one for both Kevin and Brook's voice actors, Víctor Ugarte and Alma Wilheleme respectively, at least in the first film. before their star-making roles as Shinji Ikari and Maya Ibuki, Dilandau Albatou and Hitomi Kanzaki and young Zenki and Chiaki Enno.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Some viewers and critics paint Kevin as a budding sociopath for all the brutal traps he lays out for Harry and Marv, who are just nonviolent cat burglars. This conveniently glosses over how the duo is intentionally invading Kevin's house when they know he's in there alone and even taunt him with that knowledge when they show up at his door, so he's well within his rights to assume they mean him harm.
  • The McCallister family as a whole is seen by some viewers as abusive monsters who are actively malevolent toward Kevin in the opening. While the audience is definitely meant to be on Kevin's side, this ignores several key factors:
    • The siblings are all shown bickering and snarking at one another, not just at Kevin.
    • It's established through dialogue (and later confirmed by Kevin) that he has been acting out frequently lately, not just on that night.
    • No one actually sees what started the fight between him and Buzz, as they are in a corner and everyone either has their backs to them or are too far away to hear what Buzz said. Kevin draws attention to himself by screaming and tackling Buzz so it is understandable why they focus on him.
• Signature Scene:
  • The moment where Kate realizes that they forgot Kevin — while on a plane flying to France, 30,000ft in the air. At first, Kate and Peter talk about what they forgot, and Kate determines it wasn't him leaving the garage open. After a Beat, she looks in the camera and suddenly screams, "KEVIN!"
  • Kevin's two screams, after putting aftershave in his face, and the one delivered straight to the camera before he runs to bed.
  • Among all the booby traps, the paint cans.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • That clearly wasn't Macaulay Culkin's hand grabbing the spider to place on Marv or him flying on the zipline from the home to the treehouse in the first film.
  • When Kevin places his brother's tarantula on Marv's face, it's obviously a real spider. In the next shot, it's clearly a prop. Given that putting a spider on Stern's face caused genuine anxiety (the scream was added in post-production as Stern was afraid screaming would cause the spider to bite) this is understandable.
    • Props must be given to Stern for averting the trope by actually allowing them to put the spider on his face.
  • The same happens with Joe Pesci whenever his stunt-double comes in, such as the moment he flips over the wire after charging up the stairs.
  • A lot of people could tell that the "M" scar left behind on Harry's hand doesn't match up with the direction that the scar should've been in based on how he grabbed the McCallister doorknob.
• Spiritual Adaptation: The ending is considered to be basically a kid-friendly Die Hard. Need some proof? Take a look at this article from Cracked, and also consider that "Home Alone" Antics is a Sub-Trope of Protect This House, which itself is a Sub-Trope of "Die Hard" on an X. In an amusing coincidence, Macaulay Culkin also happens to be the nephew of actress Bonnie Bedelia, who plays John McClane's wife Holly in the Die Hard films—so maybe Kevin and John McClane are related.
• Squick: Gus Polinski tries to get Kate to play his clarinet on the drive to Chicago - right after taking it out of his mouth. Keep in mind 1. he has just met her that day, and 2. the clarinet is a woodwind instrument, which means it has a reed that has been soaking in his saliva, probably for a while. Kate is clearly put off by it in-universe and sternly refuses.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • Uncle Frank commenting that they won't catch the plane in time, as it leaves in 45 minutes. While it's meant to demonstrate his pessimistic and cynical nature, he's right. It takes at least 30 minutes to get from where they live to O'Hare Airport, not counting the heavy traffic on the road and at the airport because it's Christmas. If this was real life, he would be right.
    • He was also right about how Kevin wasn’t old enough for the movie he wanted to watch.
  • The police officer who goes to the McCallisters' home to check on Kevin simply makes a cursory evaluation of the house, declares it to be secure, and says that the family should count their kids again. But if one is tempted to call this officer an idiot for thinking that these parents had somehow miscounted their children, one should remember that the McCallisters actually did miscount- because they were in such a rush to leave and get to the airport in time, they left the job of counting the kids to their niece Heather. But while she was smart enough to have all the kids line up in front of the vans taking them to the airport, she was so hasty (just tapping on heads instead of doing a roll call!) that she easily mistook Mitch Murphy - a nosy neighborhood kid who’d been drawn to house by the vans and commotion and rummaging through the family’s suitcases out of curiosity while Heather was doing the head count- for Kevin from behind. And because everyone started getting into the vans immediately after the count, no one realized the mistake, even when he stepped away from the vans and loudly told them to “have a good trip”!
• Values Dissonance: Buzz owns an air rifle which is later used by Kevin. While it did raise some eyebrows in The '90s, the idea of even carrying around an air rifle after two decades of school shootings would be seen as Troubling Unchildlike Behavior.
• The Woobie: Marley, who not only has to deal with scary rumors being made about him, but also had a falling out with his own son, leaving him only able to see his granddaughter while she's singing at the local church. Fortunately for him, Kevin's advice convinces him to try and reconnect with his son, and the ending shows that the two have made up.

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