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“Once you start to melt the fat it becomes fuel,” elaborates Laughlin. The fatty cells in Harry’s head would energise the fire, leading to “necrosis… death of the skin”. The sheer level of violence Culkin’s character unleashes on the home invaders is incredible, Khan and Acaster discover. But crikey does Kevin pay them back, as scientist and materials engineer Zoe Laughlin reveals in the programme. Tucker Carlson berates Zelensky for dressing like a STRIP CLUB OWNER in the White House - slamming Ukrainian... 'Most Brits are currently feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis, with energy costs and food prices soaring.
Are lights on timers and locks on doors the best the McCallisters can get? So far we've talked about traps that made the Wet Bandits slip and fall, traps that bashed them in the head, even traps that cut their feet. Speaking of blunt force trauma, Kevin's other opportunity to bash the wet bandits in the head with something heavy came later in the film, with one of his very last traps. When they finally collected themselves and made their way up the stairs, he was waiting. In 1990, director Chris Columbus and writer John Hughes released one of the most beloved Christmas classics of all time.
Flaming Head
Has his head accidently get hit by a door repeatedly by Pam. Mason pelts her with snowballs and knocks her out with a chunk of ice. Gets really scared after Finn sets up his room to look like it's haunted by Jimmy "Dead Leg" Gravano's ghost. Kevin flies a toy airplane at him, which hits him in the groin and causes him to slide down the stairs, taking Vera along with him. Gets electrocuted by an arc welder that Kevin connects to the sink while trying to wash off the paint, making his skull be seen briefly.
The movie's third act starts off with a really solid trap that even adults would be shocked by... Burton sits down on a chair rigged to a charged battery giving him a massive shock. Meanwhile, Unger attempts to clip Alex's yarn fence, which turns out to be wired with copper to an outlet. After an impressive front flip, he rolls down the stairs, gets his fingers snapped in a mousetrap, and finally shoots the septic line causing sewage to pour all over him.
TV tonight: those lethal Home Alone booby traps are put to the test
If that's not funny enough, Harry prances around outside before diving headfirst into the snow. Joe Pesci tends to play hot-headed characters, but this takes it to another level. Every person watching is likely to cringe and laugh at the same time because of Marv's reaction which looks like genuine pain. At the same time, it can make the viewer wonder if Kevin got the idea from watching Die Hard, another Christmas classic where John McClane had to walk through glass. While all the traps require a bit of suspension of disbelief, this early trap is one that is quite the miracle that Kevin pulled off.
Being the only entry on this list from the fourth installment of Home Alone, the sesame spinner is the movie's best attempt at utilizing the setting of a smart home. In the movie, Kevin uses the home's revolving bookcase/bar to spin Marv and Vera around and around, constantly increasing the speed with the codeword "sesame" before eventually launching them out. After dodging two paint cans in a reference to the original film, Harry and Marv get smacked by a large pipe attached to a rope. One has to admire Kevin’s magical ability to predict that he’d need a third item to toss at the crooks. Marv yanks and yanks on a doorknob, setting off the trigger on a staple gun. I’m not asking for anyone to do this to me, but I’d mind it less than other traps.
Even More Flaming Head
Rather than actually showing her fall, the audience just hears her scream before she hits the bottom of the shaft. It hits Petr in the groin in a similar trap to the very first trap of the first Home Alone. Seeing the typically serious actor Olek Krupa squeak in pain is novel. The trap does take things a bit further by him landing right on his shotgun with a shell going off. The shotgun not wounding him at all is a bit of an eye-roller, but it's still a funny trap.
Last, but certainly not least, Kevin escapes to a treehouse that’s connected to the rest of the home with a rope. Harry and Marv attempt to follow him, but he uses pruning shears to cut the rope, causing them to swing down into a brick wall. This is another trap that would almost certainly result in serious problems for the burglars and could even kill them.
Flat: Alice Down The Rabbit Hole
It's shown that the TV that Kevin plays the VHS on is quite small and the audio is so powerful that it actually sounds like events happening inside the house. Sadly, the rope is soaked in kerosene, and Kevin sets it ablaze. The Sticky Bandits try to escape, can’t, let go of the burning rope, and fall all the way to the basement. A three-story fall onto concrete from a flaming rope should have paralyzed these bad guys. Harry tries to climb a ladder after Kevin, but Kevin has already cut the bottom out, causing it to collapse under Harry’s weight.
If you know "Home Alone," you know we're not just talking about whoopee cushions and squirting flowers. By the end of the night, the bandits probably needed an emergency room visit as well as a trip to the police station. Being the first movie in the franchise means that Home Alone set the standard for what a good trap is. Who could forget the classics such as the doorknob that Kevin made so hot that it permanently branded an 'M' into Harry's hand, or when Marv gets a face full of iron from Kevin's lightbulb fake out? Many of these traps went on to be used in multiple future films, sometimes in a new and creative way, other times, not so much. While the first movie doesn't have any traps that really stand out as above and beyond, it does succeed in establishing what a good trap is and what to expect from the films that came after.
Deadly force is usually only defensible if the intruder poses an immediate threat. So Kevin McCallister might have been in the right, but don’t trust that the law will be on your side if you set up traps before you go on vacation. If you need another reason, many municipalities have banned security traps because they pose a problem for first responders during an emergency. We know for sure that Harry lost a tooth thanks to this particular trap, but it's likely both bandits suffered more injuries. The next day their faces were probably rather seriously bruised, and there's a good chance a cracked orbital or nose bone was part of the deal too. Kevin McCallister may be an eight-year-old boy with a knack for annoying his family, but the kid is a master planner, and you can tell by the way the final act of "Home Alone" unfolds.
It just goes to show that all it would take is a few tweaks of the script as Home Alone would be on the same R-rated level as a Saw movie. Obviously, a movie intended for the whole family is not going to have Harry explode into a flourish of blood and gore. However, that would be the real result if Harry had dipped his flaming head into a toilet bowl filled with kerosene and caused an explosion. Harry hilariously screams as he just sits there and lets the blow torch burn his scalp.
He uses it more than once over the course of "Home Alone," including one key trap in the basement of the McCallister home. "Home Alone" writer John Hughes was a master of carefully placing comedic elements in his films that would pay off later, and he does it several times in this film. In the very first scene, Kevin's father reminds him that he has to go downstairs and pick up his Micro Machines, because "Aunt Leslie stepped on one and almost broke her neck." He peels the plastic off, walks a little further, and trips a rope that activates a fan, which blows feathers all across this face. Instead, Harry just comes out with a tattered look and smoking, similar to the first film but with far more damage.
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