Friday, December 3, 2010

#7: "What's this? What's This?!"

As we are currently in the transitional period from Halloween to Christmas, it is time for one of the greatest movies of all time that has to do with both holidays to start appearing on Television. There are really not a lot of movies that can be equal parts Christmas Joy, laugh out loud funny, and at the same time have some of the scariest classic movie monster types that have ever existed. The movie I am talking about is of course...Home Alone


"But Shawn," you're probably asking, "are you sure you don't mean Nightmare Before Christmas? There aren't any horror movie monster types in Home Alone." Ah, but you see, that is where you're wrong. This dawned on me just recently when Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Which by the way is tied with Die Harder as my favorite sequel subtitle) was on television at some point on ABC Family back in like May. I watched as Kevin McCallister set traps that he used to severely and physically punish the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv (Known as the Sticky Bandits in Home Alone 2). Much as he had done in the original, he would cause countless blunt force traumas to the head that would kill you're average human being. It was at that time I finally realized what was going on. Harry and Marv are ZOMBIES!!!!!!


There have been plenty of articles that come out every year about the injures that would be sustained by someone if they actually did have all the things happen to them that does in Home Alone, and usually there's about 5 things that would kill you. So it is obvious that the Wet Bandits are the Walking Dead Bandits. "But Shawn," again you ask, "it's just a movie. None of it is real so of course they survive all of it." Well there in lies the problem. The Home Alone universe is set in a basically realistic universe. At no point are we to believe that there is some kind of magic or sorcery involved. Heck, they even sold the Talkboy in Home Alone 2 at toy stores. But these guys just keep coming after this little boy, and they will not die no matter what he does. He burns them, he punctures them, he smashes their faces with heavy objects, and still they keep coming, and why? Simple, he doesn't take their heads.


Seriously though, how awesome would that have been if at the end of Home Alone 2, he realized that the only choice he was going to have to finally be rid of these 2 immortal criminals that have now tried to kill him in 2 different states would be to decapitate them? He has them chase him into a pawn shop and he goes behind the counter, picks up a katana, and as they come storming in he's on the counter and just slices both of their heads off. Everyone would just be sitting there stunned. But really, is that all that bad. I mean, they're 2 grown men who are literally trying to kill a child, well, 2 grown zombies anyway.


When I was watching this earlier this year, it got me interested to look up something I never had before, the other sequels. Did you know that there are in fact 4 Home Alone movies? Home Alone 3 was originally meant to be made at the same time as 2, but that idea didn't pan out. In 1996 they decided to make it with a teenage Macaulay Culkin (who would have been 16/17 at the time. I know because he was born a year to the day after I was) however, he had retired from acting by that point. So instead they just started over, with a new character and story. Surprisingly enough, it was actually written by John Hughes as well. However, it didn't do so well. Really nothing to interesting in this one except that Scarlett Johansson plays the sister. Oh and that the song "Tub Thumpin'" by Chumbawamba was used in the trailer. I always found that odd since it's a song about getting drunk and "pissin'". Now we get to the really strange one.


Home Alone 4 was a TV movie made in 2002. It is about Kevin McCallister again, but it's not really a sequel. But it's not a remake either. Basically what happens is his parents get divorced (probably because they keep losing their kid) and he visits his dad who is currently living with his super wealthy girlfriend. Marv, one of the wet bandits, has teamed up with a female criminal to rob the mansion (I guess Harry had had his head removed by this point). However he runs into his old nemesis Kevin. So in theory this is taking place after Home Alone 2, but Kevin is actually younger then he is in Home Alone 1. Plus it's all new actors playing the parts, with French Stewart playing Marv instead of Daniel Stern. So this is more of an alternate reality (or maybe they're all Time Lords!)


So wait, what? Oh right. This Christmas if you happen to be flipping through the channels and you catch one of the Home Alone movies on, stop for a second, and just think about the fact that Nightmare Before Christmas wasn't in fact the first Christmas movie to have monsters in it, because 3 years earlier the biggest comedy of all time up to that point came out and was chock full of some would be child murdering zombie action.