This is why Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House is such a dissociative and, frankly, traumatic experience. “Home Alone 4?” you may ask, followed by, “There was a Home Alone 3?” These would be very understandable questions about this storied franchise (they’re up to 6 now). The third entry, released in 1997, is more likely to be recalled, simply by dint of it being the last one to debut on cinema screens across the world. A reboot that featured entirely new characters, the film was tepidly received (with the exception of Roger Ebert, who boldly went against the grain to declare it the best of the series), its feeble standalone story making it easy to promptly file away and move on.
Home Alone 4, however, is not so easily shaken off—once seen, it cannot be unseen. Premiering on television’s The Wonderful World of Disney in 2002, the film rejoins the McCallister family, now played by a different set of actors. This alteration is fairly commonplace for a low-budget sequel, yet for such a seminal piece of IP, there is no attempt made to cast even remotely similar-looking performers. Instead, Kevin now has dark hair, wide eyes and pronounced buck teeth, and Buzz is no longer stocky and red-maned but a thinner, younger and far-less physically imposing shit-heel. Taking this cognitive disturbance several steps further, it appears that a few McCallisters have also been lost along the way. Megan is now the only other sibling, Linnie and Jeff apparently having never existed, while the colourful extended family is neither seen nor mentioned.
The disintegration of the McCallister family unit extends through Home Alone 4’s narrative as well. As the film begins, matriarch Kate (bearing no resemblance to Catherine O’Hara) and patriarch Peter (who maybe looks a bit like John Heard if you tilt your head and squint) have been separated for eight months. What’s more, Peter is already engaged to his new girlfriend, a high-society lady with whom he now lives in her cavernous mansion. Kevin, after another quarrel with Buzz, goes to stay with Dad and Rich New Girlfriend/Fiancée for the holidays, even though they are always dashing out the door for work-related reasons. Thus, we arrive at the reason why Kevin is yet again left home alone (“It wouldn’t be the first time!” he gratingly smirks)—not by accident but just because of good ol’ fashioned parental neglect.
While I’ve never been one to get precious about beloved pop culture properties, I remain quite troubled by this grotesque retconning of the series. Sure, the McCallister clan had their flaws—they bickered and bullied and left behind their youngest son on two separate occasions while jetting to far-off locales. Yet, you could also count on them to reunite in a stronger place when all was said and done, a domestic force of nature standing tall in the face of life’s adversities. In their company, we felt safe. Here, that illusion is violently shattered, which, as I moved through my teenage years, would actually come to reflect a fraught American social climate still psychologically grappling with Columbine, 9/11, and all manner of Y2K-era anxieties.
Home Alone 4’s funhouse distortion of our nostalgia doesn’t just take aim at the McCallisters either. Kevin once again has to match wits with long-time foe Marv, now played by French Stewart. (Daniel Stern was allegedly approached but turned the gig down on account of the screenplay being “an insult, total garbage”.) Marv has come to burgle Kevin’s new lodgings not alongside Harry, who is never mentioned, but with his new wife Vera. Yet in a perplexing bit of costume design, Marv is now outfitted in Harry’s signature wardrobe, black toque and all. French Stewart adapts well to the ensuing slapstick (high points include a calamitous bathtub flood and a massive-hook-to-the-crotch-that-drags-him-out-an-upstairs-window gag), but throughout these antics, all I can ponder is what led to his attire. Did Harry die tragically somewhere along the way and this is Marv’s tribute to his old friend and co-Wet Bandit?
"Here, that illusion is violently shattered, which, as I moved through my teenage years, would actually come to reflect a fraught American social climate still psychologically grappling with Columbine, 9/11, and all manner of Y2K-era anxieties."
Add in some garden variety TV-movie shoddiness—for instance, swapping out the magical John Williams score for banal GarageBand muzak or recreating the signature “White Christmas” lip-sync but with Kevin incorrectly mouthing along to James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)”—and Home Alone 4’s festive bizarro world becomes fully, garishly realized. To be fair, the film does end on an ostensibly happy and reconciliatory note, with the McCallisters (or what’s left of them) coming together to defeat the bad guys before Dad, mid-life crisis apparently over, abruptly dumps Rich New Girlfriend/Fiancée to move back home. But as they all join in an embrace while the end credits roll, the dubious sense of security elicited comes off as false as the tacky CGI snowflakes that begin to fall on the previously winter-free environment (the film was shot in South Africa).
Home Alone 4 was the final film from its director, Rod Daniel (Teen Wolf, K-9), who sadly passed away from Parkinson’s disease in 2016. At the time, however, he retired due to a lack of further offers, elaborating that, “If you work in the arts for a living, you are paid to know what’s in the air, what the mood is, the whole societal thing. And I don’t care how hip you are, when it’s over, it’s over. I couldn’t artistically reflect how the world changed.” Upon morbidly returning to Home Alone 4 several times now, I’ve come to disagree with his self-reflection. If anything, Daniel presents a highly intuitive representation of a fractured post-millennium world, as surreal and intrinsically frightening as a Lynchian fever dream. The things we used to find comfort in have drastically and irrevocably changed, or perhaps never even existed in the first place. It’s a truly unsettling work, but hey, it wouldn’t be the holidays without a little existential dread.
This is why Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House is such a dissociative and, frankly, traumatic experience. “Home Alone 4?” you may ask, followed by, “There was a Home Alone 3?” These would be very understandable questions about this storied franchise (they’re up to 6 now). The third entry, released in 1997, is more likely to be recalled, simply by dint of it being the last one to debut on cinema screens across the world. A reboot that featured entirely new characters, the film was tepidly received (with the exception of Roger Ebert, who boldly went against the grain to declare it the best of the series), its feeble standalone story making it easy to promptly file away and move on.
Home Alone 4, however, is not so easily shaken off—once seen, it cannot be unseen. Premiering on television’s The Wonderful World of Disney in 2002, the film rejoins the McCallister family, now played by a different set of actors. This alteration is fairly commonplace for a low-budget sequel, yet for such a seminal piece of IP, there is no attempt made to cast even remotely similar-looking performers. Instead, Kevin now has dark hair, wide eyes and pronounced buck teeth, and Buzz is no longer stocky and red-maned but a thinner, younger and far-less physically imposing shit-heel. Taking this cognitive disturbance several steps further, it appears that a few McCallisters have also been lost along the way. Megan is now the only other sibling, Linnie and Jeff apparently having never existed, while the colourful extended family is neither seen nor mentioned.
The disintegration of the McCallister family unit extends through Home Alone 4’s narrative as well. As the film begins, matriarch Kate (bearing no resemblance to Catherine O’Hara) and patriarch Peter (who maybe looks a bit like John Heard if you tilt your head and squint) have been separated for eight months. What’s more, Peter is already engaged to his new girlfriend, a high-society lady with whom he now lives in her cavernous mansion. Kevin, after another quarrel with Buzz, goes to stay with Dad and Rich New Girlfriend/Fiancée for the holidays, even though they are always dashing out the door for work-related reasons. Thus, we arrive at the reason why Kevin is yet again left home alone (“It wouldn’t be the first time!” he gratingly smirks)—not by accident but just because of good ol’ fashioned parental neglect.
While I’ve never been one to get precious about beloved pop culture properties, I remain quite troubled by this grotesque retconning of the series. Sure, the McCallister clan had their flaws—they bickered and bullied and left behind their youngest son on two separate occasions while jetting to far-off locales. Yet, you could also count on them to reunite in a stronger place when all was said and done, a domestic force of nature standing tall in the face of life’s adversities. In their company, we felt safe. Here, that illusion is violently shattered, which, as I moved through my teenage years, would actually come to reflect a fraught American social climate still psychologically grappling with Columbine, 9/11, and all manner of Y2K-era anxieties.
Home Alone 4’s funhouse distortion of our nostalgia doesn’t just take aim at the McCallisters either. Kevin once again has to match wits with long-time foe Marv, now played by French Stewart. (Daniel Stern was allegedly approached but turned the gig down on account of the screenplay being “an insult, total garbage”.) Marv has come to burgle Kevin’s new lodgings not alongside Harry, who is never mentioned, but with his new wife Vera. Yet in a perplexing bit of costume design, Marv is now outfitted in Harry’s signature wardrobe, black toque and all. French Stewart adapts well to the ensuing slapstick (high points include a calamitous bathtub flood and a massive-hook-to-the-crotch-that-drags-him-out-an-upstairs-window gag), but throughout these antics, all I can ponder is what led to his attire. Did Harry die tragically somewhere along the way and this is Marv’s tribute to his old friend and co-Wet Bandit?
"Here, that illusion is violently shattered, which, as I moved through my teenage years, would actually come to reflect a fraught American social climate still psychologically grappling with Columbine, 9/11, and all manner of Y2K-era anxieties."
Add in some garden variety TV-movie shoddiness—for instance, swapping out the magical John Williams score for banal GarageBand muzak or recreating the signature “White Christmas” lip-sync but with Kevin incorrectly mouthing along to James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)”—and Home Alone 4’s festive bizarro world becomes fully, garishly realized. To be fair, the film does end on an ostensibly happy and reconciliatory note, with the McCallisters (or what’s left of them) coming together to defeat the bad guys before Dad, mid-life crisis apparently over, abruptly dumps Rich New Girlfriend/Fiancée to move back home. But as they all join in an embrace while the end credits roll, the dubious sense of security elicited comes off as false as the tacky CGI snowflakes that begin to fall on the previously winter-free environment (the film was shot in South Africa).
Home Alone 4 was the final film from its director, Rod Daniel (Teen Wolf, K-9), who sadly passed away from Parkinson’s disease in 2016. At the time, however, he retired due to a lack of further offers, elaborating that, “If you work in the arts for a living, you are paid to know what’s in the air, what the mood is, the whole societal thing. And I don’t care how hip you are, when it’s over, it’s over. I couldn’t artistically reflect how the world changed.” Upon morbidly returning to Home Alone 4 several times now, I’ve come to disagree with his self-reflection. If anything, Daniel presents a highly intuitive representation of a fractured post-millennium world, as surreal and intrinsically frightening as a Lynchian fever dream. The things we used to find comfort in have drastically and irrevocably changed, or perhaps never even existed in the first place. It’s a truly unsettling work, but hey, it wouldn’t be the holidays without a little existential dread.
