‘Home Alone’ Fans Are Shocked To Learn The Gangster Movie Kevin Watches Is Fake

The debate over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie rages on (it is — end of debate), but there’s another holiday-themed question we should be asking ourselves instead: is Angels with Filthy Souls a real film? If that title doesn’t ring a bell, maybe this line of dialogue will, “Keep the change, ya filthy animal!” Angels is the 1940s-looking gangster film that Kevin McAllister, played by Macaulay Culkin, watches in Home Alone (he also checks out the sequel, Angels with Even Filthier Souls, in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York). Alas, you won’t be able to pull a Kevin and scare away any bandits, wet or otherwise, because the noir flick doesn’t exist; it was filmed specifically for Home Alone.

This came as a huge surprise to Seth Rogen, who over the holiday tweeted, “My entire childhood, I thought the old timey movie that Kevin watches in Home Alone (Angels With Filthy Souls) was actually an old movie.” Also shocked: Captain America himself, Chris Evans, who replied, “IT’S NOT???”

https://twitter.com/ChrisEvans/status/1077700667131731974

Angels with Filthy Souls was filmed in a single day before shooting on Home Alone commenced, and it was director of photography Julio Macat who convinced director Chris Columbus to “shoot the sequence using the techniques and black-and-white negative film stock of movies from the ’40s,” according to Vanity Fair. Actor Michael Guido, who played gangster Snakes (he’s the one who gets shot by Johnny), had no idea how the fake movie would fit into the real movie; all Columbus told him is “that it was a film played by the kid to scare the bad guys, which at the time didn’t mean much to me.”

Angels is so convincing that others were shocked to learn the truth, too.

https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/1077676404312064007

So, yeah, Angels with Filthy Souls: fake. Kevin is a psychopath: real.