It’s getting to be that time of year again: A chill is in the air, you’re already growing weary of the Christmas carols at the mall, and you can’t turn on your TV without stumbling across a cable showing of Home Alone or Home Alone 2. Believe it or not, today marks the 25th anniversary of Home Alone, which makes this the perfect time to look back at the original movies and their brief, but potent effect on pop culture.
Home Alone didn’t just rake in the cash and spawn several sequels, it provided the dominant template for all ’90s live-action family comedies. Numerous Home Alonealikes (movies that star cute, yet scampish kids (or animals) who find themselves let down by the adults in their lives before they vent their frustrations by taking violent Looney Tunes-inspired revenge on the criminals and/or evil schemers that happen to stumble upon them) pumped out during the decade, ranging from woof-worthy to those that were almost as good as the real thing. So, here’s a ranking of every ’90s Home Alone movie, and all the imitators that wished they were a Home Alone movie…
11) Problem Child (1990)
Have you ever felt there was something a little off about Kevin McCallister? Like maybe he took a bit too much sadistic pleasure in setting people on fire? Well, he’s got nothing on Problem Child‘s psychotic Junior, who beat him to the box office but still seems like a kindred spirit. Sure, most of Junior’s problematic behavior is set off by bullying of some sort, but his retaliatory “pranks” are deeply mean-spirited and don’t really qualify as pranks at all. They’re more like micro-assaults. In one scene, Junior responds to some Little League razzing by beating half the opposing team unconscious with an aluminum baseball bat. What a rapscallion! Problem Child also has a gross sexist streak, as the movie’s main villain (aside from Junior himself) is his “gold-digging” adoptive mother, who ends up stuffed in a suitcase and thrown in a truck full of pig sh*t, while the genuinely evil Junior gets off scot-free.
10) Home Alone 3 (1997)
People assume that the Home Alone movies were easy to make. Hollywood certainly seemed to believe they could be replicated simply enough, but Home Alone 3 is proof that even with the Home Alone blueprint and a script by John Hughes things can go awry. Home Alone 3 fumbles right off the bat, as the movie starts by panning through a shadowy Hong Kong warehouse full of missiles and menacing machine gun-wielding heavies. We soon learn that this movie’s bad guys are spies looking to procure missile-cloaking technology for North Korea, which our kid protagonist somehow ends up with. So yes, the stability of the free world now rides on a 6-year-old being able to defend his house with wacky slingshots and falling barbell traps. On top of that, this movie’s Macaulay Culkin stand-in ranks pretty low on the scamp-o-meter, and new director Raja Gosnell flubs the slapstick. The final scene is shot like a thriller, but the gags themselves are over-the-top goofy, with baddies literally farting lightning bolts as they’re electrocuted. The original two films handled the slapstick in the exact opposite way – the overall tone was bouncy, but there was just a little bit of nail-in-the-foot edge to the violence. In the end, Home Alone 3 essentially killed the craze Home Alone started, with the stream of imitators slowing to a trickle after 1997. John Hughes giveth and John Hughes taketh away.
9) Problem Child 2 (1991)
Junior’s back, and he still hates women, as the target of almost all his sh*tty pranks this time around are the new ladies his dad (John Ritter) is dating following Junior’s disposal of his last wife. When he’s not trying to prevent his dad from finding happiness, he’s going after Trixie, a girl problem child whom Junior obviously decides he must destroy. So, why rate Problem Child 2 above the original Problem Child and even an lesser Home Alone movie? Because of the epic Tilt-a-Whirl puke scene. You don’t even have to have seen Problem Child 2 to know the scene in question, as it ranks right up there with Stand By Me in the Barf Scene Hall of Fame. Aside from that, uh, highlight, Problem Child 2 is as ugly as the first (maybe more so).
8) Baby’s Day Out (1994)
Of all the movies on this list, Baby’s Day Out feels the most like a straight-up live-action Looney Tunes short. Unfortunately, the movie’s premise would have worked a lot better as a seven-minute cartoon. Obviously the titular baby of Baby’s Day Out doesn’t plan any of the humiliations that befall his kidnappers, so there’s no catharsis when they get got. No satisfying “Gotcha!” moment. The baby is just a cartoon force of nature, and his pursuers are just really, really stupid. Also, nobody particularly wants to look at somebody else’s baby for 100 minutes.
7) Getting Even With Dad (1994)
Getting Even With Dad doesn’t follow the Home Alonealike formula as closely as some of the other movies on this list, but it does star Macaulay Culkin as a precocious kid who’s disappointed in his dad and contains multiple scenes in which bumbling burglars say stupid things and/or wind up on their asses, so it counts. It also features Ted Danson wearing a wig that would make Nicolas Cage mad with envy – not only is he sporting the full Cheers pompadour, but he has a little doll-hair ponytail attached to the back. It’s something. Really, this isn’t a terrible movie, it just isn’t much fun, and it’s easy to see why it was Macaulay Culkin’s first real flop.
6) Dennis the Menace (1993)
Following the success of Home Alone, Hollywood managed to get a movie about the original blonde sayer of the darndest things out as quickly as possible. John Hughes was hired to write — Home Alonealikes were pretty much all he did in the ’90s — and the results were okay. Dennis himself is forgettable, but Walter Matthau was born to play Mr. Wilson, and Christopher Lloyd turns in a memorable performance as a legitimately menacing drifter.
5) 101 Dalmatians (1996)
Another John Hughes special. As noted above, the protagonist of a Home Alonealike doesn’t necessarily need to be human, as long as they’re properly cute and precocious, and Pongo and the other doggy stars of 101 Dalmatians certainly qualify. A bunch of dogs being able to set up elaborate cartoon traps is a tad unbelievable, but that’s made up for by an excellent trio of villains played by Glenn Close, Hugh Laurie, and Mark Williams. After Home Alone and Home Alone 2, this is the next best Hughes-penned Home Alonealike.
4) Dunston Checks In (1996)
That’s right, it’s another Home Alonealike featuring a filthy animal (although this one has cute kids, too). Dunston Checks In ranks higher than 101 Dalmatians because because orangutans > puppies. Animal lovers with sophisticated tastes will agree. In addition to the orangutan star, Dunston also features Jason Alexander in a weird dual role as the toupeed, uptight hotel manager and the put-upon single father, and Rupert Everett as a wonderfully campy British jewel thief. The first scene in the movie involves an overweight, opera-singing older woman being sprayed in the face with water and falling in a fountain, so right from the beginning Dunston Checks In announces it’s going to be a quality monkey-filled farce.
3) Matilda (1996)
Based on the classic children’s novel by Roald Dahl, Matilda isn’t necessarily the most satisfying entry on this list, but it’s probably the best film. Mara Wilson is charming as the title character, and in a weird way, the fact that Matilda’s ability to humiliate and best the adults in her life come from a supernatural source actually makes the story more believable. That said, there are parts of this movie where the adults, particularly the hulking Ms. Trunchbull, are just a bit too mean-spirited. This one really ladles on the misery before we finally get the cathartic kiddie revenge.
2) Home Alone (1990)
Well, what is there to say? It’s Home Alone! Getting to stay home alone, eat and watch whatever you want, sass off to and stand up to grown-ups while having mild, but ultimately safe, adventures? John Hughes stumbled upon the ultimate boyhood fantasy. Home Alone strikes the perfect balance between childish humor and sly adult sarcasm while also merging holiday sentimentality and cynicism. Early-’90s Macaulay Culkin was also, basically, the perfect child actor. There are a lot of good reasons Home Alone remains almost as popular today as it was a quarter-century ago.
1) Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
The knock against Home Alone 2 is that it’s exactly like Home Alone except set in New York, which is mostly true, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yes, Home Alone 2 is just another Home Alone, but it’s also a better Home Alone. One issue with the original Home Alone is that Kevin’s transition from picked-upon dweeb to bad guy-busting trickster doesn’t necessarily feel believable. In the second movie, Kevin is a couple years older and more experienced, and Hughes wisely turns him into a self-aware Ferris Bueller for the elementary school set. The Kevin of Home Alone is a dork, while the Kevin of Home Alone 2 is almost, kinda cool. Also, they double up on the villains, reviving Harry and Marv and bringing in Tim Curry as a snooty concierge for some good ol’ John Hughes slobs vs. snobs comedy. Basically, it boils down to the following question — if Home Alone and Home Alone 2 were both on cable at the same time (as they often are), which one would you watch?
So there you have it, a ranking of all the movies you’re embarrassed to say you still love if you’re a kid of the ’90s. Are there any movies I didn’t mention that you think are worthy of Home Alonealike status? Enraged about my ranking of Baby’s Day Out? Hit the comments and let’s talk, ya trout sniffers.
