With the holiday season on its way, a bunch of Christmas movies are on their way to theaters. But, there are classics a-plenty that more than hold up to this new field of Christmas movies.
Of these aforementioned classics, Home Alone (1990) is perhaps the most entertaining Christmas movie of all time. It follows 8-year-old Kevin McCallister as his family accidentally goes to France without him. Beyond grocery shopping and doing the laundry, Kevin is pitted against two hardened burglars, who are intent on robbing his seemingly vacated house. The ensuing battle between the Wet Bandits (Joe Pesci & Daniel Stern) and Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) showcase some of the funniest moments of cinematic savagery ever. From comedic deterrents to brutal obstacles, here are Kevin’s 10 best schemes.
Ice The Stairs
Here’s a great example of the simple, yet cruel genius that many eight-year-olds, including young Mr. McCallister, possess. This was one of Kevin’s least complicated defense-mechanisms against the Wet Bandits. Knowing that, in order to enter his home, the burglars would have to take the stairs to the front or back doors, Kevin added a healthy measure of water to already icy steps, making the journey up difficult and incredibly painful, to say the least. With this simple step, Kevin let the Wet Bandits know that they were likely outmatched. Both Harry and Marv, when they finally broke into the house, were already bruised and battered.
The Tarantula
This on-the-spot move by Kevin led to one of the funniest scenes of the movie. After battling through most of Kevin’s traps, Harry and Marv come very close to getting their hands on the little bane of their existence that is Kevin McCallister. To evade capture, Kevin grabs his older brother’s tarantula, which he finds just in time. Kevin picks up the tarantula, something few adults would have the courage to do, and casually drops it onto Marv’s face.
This elicits one of the most powerfully high pitched screams an adult male might have ever uttered. Marv flings the spider onto Harry and proceeds to beat his partner with a crowbar, in continuous failed attempts to kill the terrifying little tarantula.
Tar-On-The-Stairs
Kevin seems to have a strange, maniacal obsession with stair-related obstacles. Makes sense, they do seem to work out well for him. After falling down a full flight of cement steps, and struggling to find his footing at the bottom, Marv finally succeeds in busting open the basement door and entering Kevin’s booby-trapped home. After taking a hit-to-the-face from a flying iron, Marv starts to climb the stairs. The only problem: Kevin had painted every single step on that staircase with a thick layer of tar. With each step, Marv loses another shoe, then another sock, until he is climbing barefoot. And then: the icing on the cake. Having stripped Marv of any and all defenses, Kevin planted a long, pointy nail on one of the last steps. Just as he was about to gain the first floor, Marv’s grimy foot slides right into the waiting nail; we are, of course, subjected to another classic Marv scream, just before he falls the length of the staircase, landing with a heavy thud on his back. We might have winced when he stepped on the nail, but at this point, we have abs from sheer laughter.
The Iron and the String
This is a great example of Kevin’s astonishing powers of observation. After overhearing a series of verbal jabs between the two burglars, Kevin learns that Marv might be scared of the dark. In a stroke of cruel brilliance, Kevin takes advantage of this fear and attaches a hot iron to the string that would normally turn on the lights in that terrifyingly dim basement. And Marv does not disappoint, immediately pulling the string, waiting for some light to chase the shadows of the basement away. But, instead of light, all Marv finds as he looks up into the gloom, is a heavy swack from a hot iron. He drops like a puppet whose strings have been cut. One of the funniest moments in a truly hilarious movie.
The Paint Cans
At this point, you start to question if Kevin is actually trying to defend his home, or if he just enjoys beating people up. With a simple combination of rope and multiple paint cans, Kevin ensures Marv’s long-term brain damage, by nailing him, once more, right in the face with a full can of paint. And, of course, Kevin has more ammo for Harry as well. It’s simple in concept, but definitely well-executed.
The Door Handle
Kevin McCallister enjoys playing with fire. To truly block any entrances into the house, he heated up the handle of his front door; by the time Harry fought and slipped his way up the icy steps and grabbed the door, all he encountered was blistering pain as the McCallister ‘M’ gets burned into his palm. And, of course, in shock, Harry stumbles backward and slips right back down those icy steps. Well done, Kevin.
The Blowtorch - Door Booby Trap
With a relatively complex design, Kevin rigged a string across the top of the door and connected it to a blowtorch, which was conveniently lying around in his garage.
The moment Harry got the suspiciously unlocked and unheated door open, he received a headful of fire. Everything about this was amazing - from Joe Pesci’s look of utter horror, all the way to him flinging himself into a nearby snowbank to put out his burning bean.
Slip ’n’ Shelf
When Kevin was lost in New York in Home Alone 2, he ran into the recently escaped Wet Bandits once again. But, he took care of them, in true Kevin fashion. One of the best things he did to Marv happened in this movie, when Kevin liberally coated the floor in some kind of green goo. Goo that Marv, unsurprisingly, stumbled right into. After a few seconds of frenzied dancing, Marv finally went down and slid the length of the room, where he slammed into a shelf filled with paint cans. But, before the shelf topples over, one of its legs is at his painfully perfect groin-height. Pain beyond pain, and that’s before the shelf falls, subjecting Marv to a deluge of paint, cans, and wood.
Electrocution
This is one of his schemes that showcases the true evil genius behind that innocent smile. Kevin, knowing that Marv would want to wash the paint out of his eyes after the shelf fell on him in Home Alone 2, wired the metal sink so that, instead of receiving a gentle trickle of water, Marv gets blasted with lightning. This is one of Kevin’s smartest obstacles, as it piggy-backed off of previous obstacles. This kid is smart - he figured out a way to predict the behavior of his two adversaries. They never had a chance.
The Kerosene Toilet
In an unmatched stroke of utter genius, all while paying homage to his best defense in the first movie, Kevin rigs another blowtorch, this time in the bathroom of the home in which he is being hunted in the second movie. Once again, Harry gets a head full of fire, and, knowing that he would need to extinguish his flaming head, Kevin left what looked like water in the toilet, after cutting the water to the sink. Harry displays a surprising level of acrobatics and performs a handstand on the toilet bowl, lowering his head into the water. But, it wasn’t water. It was Kerosene. Beautiful, inspiring, and beyond explosive. Much to our enjoyment, Kevin McCallister is a menace.
