Home Alone

Home Alone (1990)

55 corrected entries

(44 votes)

Corrected entry: When the first shot of the rigged rope is shown outside of the upstairs window, the rope appears to be horizontal. Yet, when Kevin rides down it, the rope appears to now be sloping downward towards the treehouse.

Correction: That could be because of his weight pulling the rope down.

Corrected entry: When Kevin's father leaves the table to stop Kevin from annoying Buzz, the Pepsi bottle is going to fall, In the following shot, the bottle is not falling and the dishes have moved. (00:09:45)

Dr Wilson

Correction: The bottle does fall, causing people to panic and plates to move.

Ssiscool

Corrected entry: When Kevin goes to the market, he had one pack of toilet paper in his cart and as he heads through checkout. In the next scene, it shows him walking home with two bags. You can see that there are two packs of toilet paper (one in each bag).

Correction: There is one pack of toilet paper in the front of the belt, and one lying down on the back of the belt.

Corrected entry: The family checks in to a United Ticket Counter, yet they fly an American Airlines plane.

Correction: It's not uncommon (especially around the holidays) for airlines to share ticket counters.

Corrected entry: In the scene at the end when Kevin runs down the stairs to meet his mom, his hair totally changes in the next shot.

Correction: The wind, as he runs down the stairs, pushed his hair up, but when he is stationary at the bottom of the stairs it returns to normal.

Corrected entry: When Kevin pushed Buzz and spills the milk, everyone rushed over to clean it up. Fuller runs over and gets stuck between the chair and the wall. Kevin's aunt runs over to Fuller, and she's maybe five feet away when the scene switches. It shows everyone cleaning up the mess. That lasts for about ten seconds then the scene switches back to Kevin's aunt and Fuller. She just got to him and takes him out from behind the chair. What was she doing for the past ten seconds?

Correction: Maybe the aunt was focusing on Buzz and Kevin and didn't notice that her son was behind the chair.

Corrected entry: When Kevin is running through the next-door neighbour's basement, there is a lot of water pouring down from the upper levels of the house into the basement (the burglar's had turned the taps on earlier on in the movie). Yet, when Kevin reaches the kitchen, the taps are turned off - where is the water supposed to be coming from?

Correction: When Kevin reaches the kitchen, he is confronted by Harry and Marv. The shot shows that the taps are turned on and water is leaking over the sides.

Corrected entry: In the scene where Harry and Marv are in Kevin's neighbour's house, when Kevin's dad calls, Harry picks up the phone to listen to the message, and the phone is on the hook. It shows him listening, then he calls out to Marv, and the camera looks at Marv, then when it returns to Harry, the phone is off the hook.

Correction: That's Marv who picks up the phone and the camera looks then at Harry (near the christmas tree) and returns to Marv.

Corrected entry: At the beginning, the mum is on the phone and right before Kevin jumps on to the bed, she was saying, 'No, we're not taking the dog, we're putting him in a kennel.' We never see a dog or any evidence of a dog in either this movie or its sequel.

Correction: There is mention of there being a dog. It was not said, but there was a dog door. So we never saw the dog, but it would have been possible for there to be one.

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

dell

Correction: Already submitted and corrected.

Corrected entry: At the beginning of the movie, Jeff McCallister throws his bag down the stairs vertically, yet, the bag lands horizontally at Joe Pesci's feet.

Correction: As that's a "depending" reply, you have to go with what we see and that's that the bag ending up horizontal at his feet. It should have been vertical.

Your logic is backward. What we see on screen is the bag rotating. Unless the movie shows something that indicates it could not happen, it is not a mistake.

It's a movie mistake without question.

Correction: Depending on the weight packed inside and the angle at which it was thrown, the bag may have rotated in midair.

Corrected entry: There is no such thing as a fully booked long-haul flight like the one Mrs. McCallister needs. A few seats are always kept spare in case of emergencies. If not required they are given to airline employees. If an airline would not find her a seat the U.S. Embassy in Paris would, and the airline receptionist would know perfectly well that she had to ring them. One phone call from an embassy staffer and Mrs. McCallister would be on a flight. She is not stupid - she would know exactly what to do.

Correction: Airlines routinely remove passengers from flights in order to accommodate people who require emergency transport. Just ask Dr David Dao, who was forcibly dragged off a United Airlines flight to make room for another passenger. His is just the most notable case. In fact it happens all the time.

If someone thought to call the embassy.

If Mrs McAllister didn't - and nothing in her character suggests that she is so stupid as to neglect such a vital fact - the one of the airline staff to whom she tells her story either would have told her to or would have done so on her behalf. That is an essential part of their training. As one poster said, it happens all the time.

Correction: Unless two or three of the other millions of people in all of Paris happened to have some sort of an emergency (or even faked one to get a seat) and also needed a flight that same day. Not terrifically unlikely, especially during the holiday season.

Phixius

Not terrifically unlikely, terrifically impossible. There are eighty flights from Charles de Gaulle airport to the east coast of the USA every day and a similar number from Paris Orly. Mrs McAllister would be on one of those flights even if that meant forcibly removing a paying passenger to accommodate her. That's not my opinion, it's a fact.

I recognize the validity of the 'Emergency Flight Accommodation" deals mentioned above, but here's the thing-a major part of the movie (however unbelievable) is that nobody except Mrs. McAllister recognizes that the situation is an emergency. Take the earlier scene, where a cop is sent over: He knocks on the door a few times. We know that Kevin is home, just hiding under the bed. With no answer, he mutters into his walkie-talkie to "count their kids again", and drives off. That's. It. No further investigation, no repeat police visit. It's basically like Mrs. McAllister is an unreliable woman-who-cried-wolf. Given this, why the hell would an airline in this same 'world' start jostling passengers around and messing with its itinerary? Now that I think about it, a lot of this movie is like a nightmare about a Cassandra Complex, lol.

Corrected entry: When Kevin orders his own cheese pizza and has it delivered, he has some fun with the delivery guy. He plays the video in which someone gets shot and killed. The pizza guy is obviously scared and runs away, believing that he is being shot at. Surely someone who thinks they have just been threatened by a gun would either call the police or investigate further. And if the police got a call of that nature, they would definitely check it out.

Correction: The pizza boy probably realised he'd been pranked a minute later when he calmed down and realised how silly the situation was. Also, the man with the gun did pay for his pizza, even if the tip was lousy.

Correction: I was a pizza boy for a while, I assure you, this isn't all that worse from the way they treat us for real. The man is probably used to this.

dizzyd

Correction: He was probably so terrified that he just bolted and the police never even crossed his mind.

Not necessarily true. When he returns to the shop and people see he is terrified they would ring police after he explained.

Ssiscool

OK, so he calls the police when he gets back to the shop, or stops someplace to find a phone. The cops go out and find no bullet holes in the door or walls and no signs that the place had been shot up. Where's the crime?

Corrected entry: On the morning that Kevin wakes up looking for his family, his hair changes in each scene and stands up straighter on top.

Correction: His hair changes with every scene as he is walking round the house. We don't see him all the time so he could easily have ruffled his hair.

Corrected entry: When Marv is trying to break into the basement with the crowbar but slips on the ice, he hooks the crowbar on the sill of the door and then slips again. The crowbar then falls on his head. The mistake is that when he slips and the crowbar is hanging it is not hooked on the sill of the door, but is obviously hanging by a wire as it swings freely in front of the door.

Correction: The crowbar doesn't hang by a wire, there's a raised panel about an inch inside the more visible edge, which the crowbar snags on for a second, pivots on and then falls off.

Home Alone mistake picture

Revealing mistake: As Kevin is flying off the front porch on the toboggan, you can see the small wheels mounted on the bottom of the sled to aid in its "jump". (00:25:30)

More mistakes in Home Alone

Megan McCallister: You're not at all worried that something might happen to Kevin?
Buzz McCallister: No, for three reasons: A, I'm not that lucky. Two, we use smoke detectors and D, we live on the most boring street in the whole United States of America, where nothing even remotely dangerous will ever happen. Period.

More quotes from Home Alone
More trivia for Home Alone

Question: Maybe I missed it, but did the McAllisters even bother to call home? I don't remember them calling the house at all. Why wouldn't that be the first thing they do? Kevin seems to be pretty independent for his age. He might have not answered the door, but I'm sure he would have answered the phone.

Carl Missouri

Chosen answer: They did but the power and phone lines were down due to a tree branch that had fallen on them the night before the family left. A flight attendant on their plane mentions that attempts had been made to call the McAllisters' home but "the phones are still out of order".

Jeff Swanson

But how did he call the police at the end if the phone lines were down.

That was several days later. Clearly the phone lines were repaired over the course of the film.

The film takes place over 3 or 4 days.

Ssiscool

After the storm the lineman tells them the power has been restored but the phone lines are "a mess" and that it would take several days to get them fixed. They were out initially, and then in various stages of repair afterward.

Also explains calling for a pizza.

Ssiscool

It's ridiculous though that the phones are apparently working by the time they land (Kate's SIL calls everyone on their street). Yet none of them try the house again.

Answer: That is also how Kevin was able to order his cheese pizza from Little Nero's.

zredman

Answer: The phone lines were fixed by the end of the movie. Remember, this takes place over the course of several days.

Answer: It's also possible they don't think he's at the house still since the cops did attempt to stop by and see if he was home, but received no answer after ringing the bell. Or they did try to call and left a message, but Kevin may not have thought to check the phone messages if he was out of the house and didn't expect anyone to call. He also didn't want anyone to return until the day prior to Christmas, by which point the mom was already en route and the dad and remaining kids had a plan to come home on Christmas morning.

Answer: The next day, after the cop shows up to check the house, while the Wet Bandits are in the house next door, the phone rings and the answering machine picks up, allowing Peter to leave a message. If the next-door neighbor's phone is working, wouldn't it only make sense for Peter to immediately call his own house? Even if Kevin hasn't returned home from shoplifting a toothbrush and doesn't answer the phone, Peter should still be able to leave a message on an answering machine and most likely keep calling over and over until Kevin answers the phone.

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