Home Alone

Home Alone (1990)

55 corrected entries

(44 votes)

Corrected entry: When Kevin is talking to Santa as he is getting in his car, Kevin gives his address as 671 Lincoln Boulevard. Later when Kevin is calling 911, he gives his address as 656 Lincoln Boulevard.

Correction: That is because he is giving the address to the house he runs across to, where Marv and Harry are arrested.

That is true.

Corrected entry: After Marv gets a nail shoved in his foot in the basement and instead of going back up stairs, he just decides to go back up the slippery ice stairs outside, why did he ditch the basement stairs, he could have gotten in the house a lot quicker without cutting his feet, all he had to do was look out for the nail.

Correction: It wasn't just the nail that was the problem, Kevin had also covered the basement stairs in tar which made everything stick to it. Had Marv attempted to walk up the basement stairs a second time would have taken far too long because his foot would have gotten stuck on each step. Walking back up the slippery ice stairs would probably have been much quicker.

Casual Person

If Marv tried the basement stairs a second time he could have gotten his shoes and red socks out of the tar.

Correction: Marv is also not the brightest bulb in the box to it's pretty reasonable to believe he wouldn't have thought any of it through.

Corrected entry: Kevin sleeps in and doesn't get to go on vacation, but that night he was supposed to sleep with his cousin who wets the bed. If that kid had slept with him Kevin would have waken up with the kid.

Correction: Kevin did not sleep with his cousin at the end. When he and his mother where fighting in the entrance to the 3rd floor he tells her that his cousin wets the bed, and she said that they will put him in another place and not with Kevin.

Corrected entry: When Harry and Marv are watching the McCallister house during the day, Harry tells Marv to go to the back door to check things out. Hearing a noise at the door, Kevin plays the video tape with the machine gun shooting, and a stunned Marv falls backwards over the garbage cans turning them all over. Later that night they come back at 9pm to rob the house, but now the garbage cans are all standing back up again.

Hawk

Correction: "Later that night" means that Kevin had plenty of time to put the garbage cans back up.

Phaneron

Corrected entry: Why don't the McAllisters simply contact their local Police station (or have someone from the US Embassy do it for them) and have them arrange for Kevin to be looked after until one of them can get back?

Correction: They did exactly that - contacted the police, who went to the McAllister home to check on Kevin. However, Kevin was scared and hiding under the bed and didn't answer the door, leading the officers to believe that no one was there at all. They left, saying, "Tell 'em to count their kids again!"

Chanteuse66

Corrected entry: The burglars plan to rob Kevin's house at five o'clock. After he talks to the old man who lives next door, Kevin leaves the church and goes home to booby trap his house. The church bells ring eight o'clock. (01:12:50)

Correction: They said nine o'clock not five o'clock.

Corrected entry: When Marv gets shot in the face by Kevin after sticking his head through the pet door, there's a noticeable delay between when the gun's discharge hits his face, and his reaction.

Correction: A delayed reaction to pain isn't really out of the ordinary. In instances such as this, it can just take a moment for the initial shock to wear off.

Phaneron

Corrected entry: In the scene where Uncle Frank backs up into Fuller, you can see that Fuller braces for it.

Correction: That's because he saw the chair coming and was too startled to move out of the way.

Corrected entry: When Kevin's mother realises she's forgotten her son and decides to return, she takes a plane, but the plane which she arrives in later is totally different.

Correction: She says to the person at the airline counter that she has flown on several different flights trying to get back to Chicago. She doesn't even know where she is at that moment.

Corrected entry: The McCalisters overslept because the power was out. They wake up to the airport shuttle drivers knocking on the door. When they are leaving the house the electrician from the power company tells them he got the power back on. Later on the plane Mrs McCalister says she forgot to turn off the coffee pot, Mr McCalister says he turned off the coffee. The power was out so the coffee pot couldn't have been on.

Correction: The power went out during the night, but by the time they woke up it was back on (notice the clock radio was on, just with the wrong time). They likely made themselves coffee while everyone was rushing to get ready.

Correction: The power was back on when they woke as the alarm clock was on just not the correct time. So they could have made a pot of coffee prior to departure.

Corrected entry: When the family is rushing all over the house because they're late, they show Brooke coming down the stairs and Heather going up the stairs. Then the scene goes to Mitch Murphy and then comes back to the family rushing. The scene shows the same shot of Brooke and Heather going down and up the stairs. (00:13:50)

Correction: It's not the same clip as the people on the stairs are different between the two shots.

Ssiscool

Corrected entry: When the Mom is in the airport trying to get a plane ticket, she offers an old couple her earrings and her rings and her watch, and they agree to take them for their ticket. At the end when she is hugging Kevin, she has her rings and her earrings on.

Correction: They never actually showed the mother giving up the earrings and the ring. It is possible that the old couple was just nice enough to take the money.

Corrected entry: Kevin's dad calls the neighbour's house and leaves a message. How can he when he and the neighbors live on the same block and the phones are supposed to be out?

Correction: Since there are no workers fixing the phone lines, and Kevin called a pizza guy after this scene, that must mean that the phone lines have been fixed.

Corrected entry: During the head count, Heather (the girl counting heads) counts herself twice-once at the beginning and then at the end. So even if Kevin was there instead of Mitch Murphy, there would still only have been 10 kids, therefore another kid had to have been missing.

Correction: She does count herself twice but because Buzz was talking she put her hand on the blonde-headed girl next to him but doesn't say her number and if you pay attention to who she counted the girl should have been six, but she counted Buzz as Six. So she may have counted herself twice because she had forgotten to give the blonde-headed girl a number or she forgot she counted herself, but either way she still counted the correct number of kids there should be.

Corrected entry: When Kevin is home alone, the phone lines are broken, so how could he order the pizza from Little Nero's?

Correction: A worker says in the beginning that the phone lines will be repaired - obviously, they must have gotten fixed by the time Kevin ordered the pizza. Why the McCallisters didn't call home and have Kevin answer is beyond me though.

They didn't call home because they were told at the airport that the phone line at their home was still down. They probably assumed they were down till they went home Friday morning. Kevin was also out of the house taking care of things and probably missed their call if they called later and even if they had a machine he probably didn't think to check it.

Corrected entry: Kevin can manage to do the shopping, and work out how to use the washing machine; and yet he needed his mum to help pack his suitcase?

Correction: All mothers see their kids as helpless, and all kids usually end up taking advantage of it.

Sereenie

Correction: This is a major theme of the movie. Kevin (and his family) learn that he's not helpless. He could have packed his suitcase if he'd actually tried.

Corrected entry: When Kevin opens the window, he overhears Marv and Harry planning to return that night at nine o'clock. At this point, Kevin could have simply called the police and told them what was going to happen. The Wet Bandits would have been caught immediately.

Correction: 2 things, 1 he was worried the police wouldn't believe him and 2 he enjoyed being home alone at that point and didn't want cops to take him somewhere else.

lionhead

He may have also been worried since he accidentally shoplifted.

Corrected entry: If the water Kevin poured on the steps froze almost instantly, it would be too cold outside for the tar he put on some steps to still be soft and sticky enough to adhere to Marvin's feet.

KeyZOid

Correction: The tarred steps are inside the house, in the basement. The temperature outside is irrelevant as far as they are concerned.

Phaneron

I was thinking it was done outside in the dark. Now I'd question if tar would stay that sticky - even inside a basement. When the temperature outside is below freezing, my basement is relatively cold.

KeyZOid

Not all houses and basements are the same. Since the tar sticks to Marv's feet, we have to accept that the basement is warm enough for the tar to maintain its stickiness.

Phaneron

Corrected entry: When Kevin prepares the house to defend it against the bandits, he pours water over the steps at the front door and on the stairs to the basement. The water freezes practically immediately. In a later shot, when Kevin is running from the bandits to his neighbours house, you see that the street is covered with puddles of (liquid) water.

Correction: The street may have been salted, which would cause ice or snow to melt into puddles. At the same time, an unsalted surface (as in the steps) would continue to accumulate ice.

Correction: Remember Kevin's neighbour salts the sidewalks each night so it may have been from him.

Corrected entry: When Kevin and Buzz are fighting over the pizza, you can see there are no boots over by the kitchen door. But in the next shot when Kevin lights the firecrackers with a BBQ lighter, you can see a pair of black boots standing by the door.

dell

Correction: These aren't consecutive shots. The scene with Buzz and the pizza takes place before the family leaves for vacation; the firecrackers happen later, when Kevin is by himself.

Other mistake: Kevin rides down the stairs on his sled and out the door. He originally lined up the sled at the top of the stairs, but it is clear that the stairs lie to the right of the door. His sled went straight down the stairs, therefore making it impossible to go straight out the door in one movement as shown. (00:25:25)

More mistakes in Home Alone

Check-Out Woman: Are you here all by yourself?
Kevin McCallister: Ma'am, I'm eight years old. You think I would be here *alone*? I don't think so.

More quotes from Home Alone

Trivia: The infamous black and white movie was called "Angels with Filthy Souls." In "Home Alone 2," it was called "Angels with Filthier Souls" - it was a sequel, as was Home Alone 2.

William Bergquist

More trivia for Home Alone

Question: Why was Kevin's family so mean to him?

Answer: I think it was a way to make leaving him "home alone" more realistic and understandable as opposed to absurd. Being perceived as a brat/pest and annoying to be around, it is (somewhat) conceivable that none of the family members would be eager to have Kevin by their side. This "frees" all of them from noticing that Kevin isn't with them. Everyone would just assume that Kevin is somewhere among them and each be glad they didn't have to sit next to him on the way to the airport or during the long flight.

KeyZOid

In addition to this, the movie is partially about Kevin learning to have more respect for others. He appreciates his family more as he spends more time without them.

Answer: The ones who were mean just saw Kevin as a brat. However, it's not uncommon in situations of being in an overcrowded house to easily lose one's patience and temper and become frustrated with small, but irritating things; which seems to happen to his mother. Buzz just has that general big brother contempt for his kid brother, but obviously still loves him, along with everyone else in the family, at the end when he finds out Kevin is safe.

Bishop73

Nuts to that. They all could've tried a little harder, that's one lame excuse for treating someone like garbage and I come from a good sized bunch who've done the same to me. You also forget his uncle didn't care about him regardless of the situation.

Rob245

Like it or not the answer is perfectly valid. Families have different dynamics. Kevin is something of a brat (he calls his mother "dummy" and openly wishes he didn't have a family), as are his brothers and sisters, especially Buzz. I for one have TWO uncles in my family who behave just like the uncle in the movie. We don't invite them over, but we've had similar situations to what's depicted in the film.

Hey I've had three uncles, father's older brothers, he hated all three of them, cared only when they started dying. Yeah the dynamics and all, my mother has stated "You ruined this family" though this bunch didn't need my help in being messed up. My sympathies to you Mr Hoffman, your uncles Dustin and Philip Seymour must be/been terrible, just kidding only on the famous names there, no offense meant.

Rob245

It's just a movie! The characters are fictional and were given contrived, exaggerated, over-the-top personalities to fit the comedic plot. It's pointless to compare them to real-life family dynamics.

raywest

Exactly. It's done for entertainment.

Ssiscool

Also, it's a movie from a child's point of view. Kevin is supposed to be the "victim." As a 35-year-old, I have more sympathy for the adults and older kids. The movie is about Kevin learning to miss his family and be more considerate of others.

More questions & answers from Home Alone

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