WINNETKA, Illinois – It has been 34 years since Kevin McCallister paint-canned two sour-faced bandits in Home Alone (1990).
And every Christmas since, fans have taken self-made tours of suburban Chicago sites in the classic holiday movie, which finds the eight-year-old boy defending himself against robbers after his family leaves for a vacation without him.
The stately residence where exteriors were shot in Winnetka, Illinois, is the area’s top tourist attraction, with thousands of visitors annually.
In 2024, American actor Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin and became a 10-year-old international superstar as a result, created his own multi-city tour, holding screenings of the family comedy followed by a Q&A. Billed as A Nostalgic Night With Macaulay Culkin, it played on Dec 6 in Rosemont, Illinois, just outside Chicago, and that proved a big draw for Home Alone stans (social media fans).
They flocked to the Rosemont Theatre in T-shirts quoting American film-maker John Hughes’ script – “Keep the change, ya filthy animal” – and roared at the burns and pratfalls of the bumbling thieves played by American actors Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.
Parents toted fleece blankets and stuffies for past-bedtime children. Many were watching the movie, directed by American film-maker Chris Columbus, on the big screen for the first time.
The appeal was intergenerational and uncomplicated.
“It feels like growing up,” said mega-fan Monti Smith, 26, from Nashville, Tennessee.
The setting
Fans taking photos outside the Home Alone house in Winnetka, Illinois, on Dec 6. PHOTO: NYTIMES
The five-bedroom, 9,126 sq foot brick home at 671 Lincoln Avenue in Winnetka has been a must-visit for movie buffs – and real estate agents. Its sale listing, for more than US$5 million (S$6.8 million), went viral in 2024. After a week on the market, the house found a buyer.
When a car pulled into the gated driveway on a recent Friday, the driver paid no mind to the steady stream of onlookers or the traffic stopping for selfie-takers.
“I wanted to come see if it’s real,” said Mr Elias Sanchez, 39, who watched the movie as a boy in Mexico and now works in construction in Las Vegas. He took eight family members to see it, their top Chicago priority.
His children posed for photos: hands on cheeks, mouths agape, just like Kevin.
“I grew up with it, and now they’re growing up with it,” he added. “It’s a nice feeling. I love it.”
The stars
“Do you want me to make you guys feel old?” Culkin asked a minute after he arrived onstage with the moderator. “I’m 44.”
Once the baby-faced king of Hollywood, the former child star has long been somewhat off-the-radar.
Home Alone “was kind of a curse and a blessing, for a while, for me”, he said at the event.
In the mid-1990s, his teenage heyday, he took a nearly decade-long break from acting, as his parents engaged in a messy custody fight and he took control of his multimillion-dollar trust fund. Later, he dabbled in music and ran an off-kilter humour website and a podcast.
Actors Macaulay Culkin (right) and Brenda Song at the Academy Museum Gala fund-raiser in Los Angeles on Oct 19. PHOTO: REUTERS
He has only slowly returned to performing. He will next be seen in the second season of the Prime Video post-apocalyptic drama series Fallout (2024 to present), his most high-profile role in years.
“Guys, thanks for remembering me,” he told the audience repeatedly, in genuine tones.
The Home Alone road show followed the perspective-shift of becoming a father of sons, aged two and three, with his fiancee, American actress Brenda Song.
“I look at the movie differently now because of that,” he said. “I watch it through a different lens – I watch it with them. And they have no idea who they’re sitting next to.”
In the Q&A, he had high praise for collaborators like Hughes, who died in 2009, and Canadian actor John Candy, his co-star in another beloved production, Uncle Buck (1989).
Both Candy, who died in 1994, and Hughes checked up on Culkin as he became the most famous kid in the world, he said.
Whenever he sees Canadian actress Catherine O’Hara, who played his mother, he calls her mum, he said, “and she opens up her arms – she goes, ‘Son’”.
Recently, Culkin has poked fun at his Home Alone persona, often in commercials that feature the house. So when it came up for sale over the years, “I had half a mind to buy it – just for giggles,” he said as the audience cheered.
He imagined turning it into a movie fun house, where you could sled down the stairs.
But, he said, “I got kids. I’m busy, man.”
The merch
Fan Riley Faber showing her shirt with an often-quoted line from Home Alone (1990).PHOTO: NYTIMES
At the theatre, Culkin’s face adorned shirts, earmuffs and at least one purse. Many outfits paid tribute to the “filthy animal” quote, taken from a gangster movie that Kevin adopts as his tough-guy bible. Shown in snippets in Home Alone, the black-and-white “Angels With Filthy Souls” is not real; Hughes wrote it for the project.
Niche references ruled. Mr Zac Ring, 36, a project manager from the Bay Area, wore a sweatshirt advertising Little Nero’s, the pizzeria whose unfortunate driver delivers to the McCallister manse. And die-hards like Mr Smith sported collectibles – Home Alone 2 Adidas, released in 2022. He bought two pairs: one to wear and one to display.
A Home Alone tote. PHOTO: NYTIMES
The fans
Riley (left) and Jack Faber imitating Home Alone character Kevin McCallister outside the Rosemont Theatre’s screening of the movie in Illinois on Dec 6. PHOTO: NYTIMES
Why did Home Alone resonate so deeply? Many viewers were around the same age as Kevin when they first saw it. In his solo quest to survive and protect his home, they found a hero’s journey for kids.
Ms Samm Makris had “two blond brothers who looked just like him”, she said of Culkin. “And we all had the dream of what would happen if we got left alone. They were always setting booby traps.”
Mr Ring remembered “wishing someone would rob my house because I know what to do now”. He rigged a bucket of water atop a door and his little sister was the unsuspecting victim.
For parents, it is a throwback. Ms Heather Bright, a social worker, rings in every Christmas with the movie alongside her 10-year-old daughter.
She said: “It makes me want to be a kid again.” NYTIMES
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