Rules of the House: The 30th Anniversary of Home Alone

Hard to believe that Home Alone celebrates its 30^th anniversary this Holiday season. To say that the now iconic and classic Christmas film caught everyone in the movie industry off guard is an understatement. 

Home Alone was the brainchild of the late, great writer-director John Hughes, who had already made a movie impact on the holidays with two of his previous films, 1987’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles and 1989’s National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (which have also become Christmas perennials in their own right).

Home Alone came from a fleeting thought Hughes once had as his family was going on vacation. As he made his list of “to do’s,” Hughes wondered what would happen if he left his 10-year-old son at home. He quickly wrote eight pages of notes that eventually became Home Alone.

For anyone who has been home alone since the film premiered and doesn’t know the story, Home Alone tells the tale of young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), who is mistakenly left behind at home, when his parents (John Heard and Catherine O’Hara), siblings and extended family embark on a Christmas vacation to Paris. When two burglars, Harry and Marv (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) attempt to break into the McCallister home, Kevin decides to defend his home with results that are painful for the burglars and hysterical for audiences.

The Many Screams of Home Alone.

To direct Home Alone, Hughes chose Chris Columbus, who had penned the screenplays for such ‘80’s Spielberg hits as Gremlins (1984) and The Goonies (1985) and directed the cult favorite 1987’s Adventures in Babysitting.  Columbus did some uncredited work on the script for Home Alone, which included the addition of “Old Man Marley,” Kevin’s mysterious next-door neighbor.

This provided Home Alone with an added layer of heart and emotion. The connection that eventually forms between Kevin and the Old Man and the tireless, emotional roller-coaster Kevin’s mom experiences during her travel trials in getting home are in stark contrast to the Tom & Jerry-like slapstick between Kevin and the burglars Harry and Marv (“The Wet Bandits”). 

However, it’s a balance that all works. Home Alone takes us from the heights of hysteria as Marv gets an iron imprinted on his face to the feel-good satisfaction when Kevin is eventually reunited with his family.

It’s the entire ensemble cast that makes all this work. There’s good reason that Macaulay Culkin became one of the movie icons of the ‘90’s thanks to Home Alone. Along with impeccable comic timing, he brings an unexpected, matter-of-fact matureness to the role, which was and still is refreshing for a child actor.

Catherine O’Hara as Kate, Kevin’s mom, walks a perfect comic acting line and emerges as a frantic parent we can all empathize with.

While we're speaking of Kevin's Mom, has anybody every figured out what Kevin's parents did for a living to afford that house and their trips?

Then, there’s Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as Harry and Marv. There’s such great chemistry between the two of them and no one takes a blowtorch to the head or falls down a flight of stairs better (Stern also has a hysterical, high-pitch scream). They both may be the “Tom” in this extended Tom & Jerry cartoon and be nothing more than cartoon characters, but they both do it so well.



Then, there’s John Candy in his extended cameo as Gus Polinski, the “Polka King of the Midwest” who assists with getting Kate home. He is so…so…John Candy and his brief scenes and endearing smile just show how much his talent is still missed today.

Gus never did leave a kid home alone, but he left one at a funeral parlor once....

When it opened on November 16, 1990, Home Alone surprised everyone by taking the number one spot at the box office during its opening weekend (it even bumped a brand-new Disney animated feature, The Rescuers Down Under to fourth place).

Home Alone’s success at the box-office snow balled weekend after weekend, as it remained in the number one spot for twelve straight weeks, through February of 1991 and it even remained in the top ten through Easter weekend. It was the number one grossing comedy film of all time for eleven years, until The Hangover Part II came out in 2011.

The film has had a lasting impact on our pop culture: the image of Macaulay Culkin, mouth agape and hands on either side of his face is an indelible image and “Keep the Change ‘Ya Filthy Animal!’ is a familiar line of dialogue to even the most casual movie fan.

A sequel, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York was quickly greenlit and released two years later. Other sequels followed, including several made-for-TV films, but after the second, none of the original cast returned. 

Disney (who now owns 20^th Century Fox) announced that a remake is planned for Disney + (which recently prompted some unfiltered feedback on Twitter from Chris Columbus).

It will be a challenge for all involved in this new Home Alone, as the laughter and magic of the original “Christmas blockbuster” still lives on thirty years later.