Macaulay wasn’t the only Culkin in Home Alone.
His younger brother, Kieran, was cast as Kevin’s bedwetter cousin, Fuller.
During the dinner fight they used a rubber chair to smash Fuller’s face up against
the wall.
Buzz’s ugly girlfriend was actually a boy dressed up to look like a girl.
“Buzz, your girlfriend…woof!”
[glass shatters]
For the toboggan stunt, they built a ski ramp on the stairs
and did a test with nobody on it and the toboggan flew over 30 feet.
So they installed a brake system on it to make the stunt safer for the stuntman.
But when they did more takes it was going way too slow, so before shooting another take
the stunt coordinator turned off the brake switch right as the director yelled “action",
and that’s the take you see in the movie.
“Whooooa!”
Editing this scene was a bit of a nightmare
because if you notice the piece of donut hanging on the receiver,
they had to maintain continuity by only using the takes where the donut was
in the shot.
To do the van gag, they filmed it driving in reverse
and had some stagehands shake the van for dramatic effect. [Tires screeching]
[Screaming]
Here’s a look at the shot in reverse to see how it was filmed.
Because of Child Labor Laws Macaulay couldn’t work past 10pm,
so they filmed his scenes for the pizza delivery gag inside the house in the morning,
and the pizza guy’s scenes were filmed outside at night.
“Cheapskate!”
In case you were wondering "Angels with Filthy Souls" isn’t a real movie,
so it’s pretty cool that a fake movie clip was made specifically for "Home Alone"
and became what I think is one of the funniest gags in the film.
“…One, Two…Ten!”
[Machine gun firing]
But this one is my favorite.
[BB gun fires]
[Commenter laughing]
Ah, gets me every time!
Let me know in the comments which gag is your favorite.
The film’s budget was only $18 million dollars,
which was low even for 1990s standards,
which means they didn’t have a lot of money to spend on special effects.
So they were able to find a guy in Chicago and hired him for about $500 per effect.
One of them he did was the BB shot into Marv’s face
[BB gun firing]
which he drew frame by frame by hand.
“Ahhh!”
The now famous “Home Alone fall” was created by Joe Pesci’s stuntman on the spot while filming.
He was just supposed to stumble down the stairs,
but he went above and beyond by deciding to backflip down them instead.
[Shoes slipping, yelling noises]
During the iron gag there’s a POV shot
where the iron falls and hits Marv in the face,
and to get that shot they rigged up a 300lb. camera by a rope
that fell and stopped right above Stern’s face.
If you’re a fan of the "Indiana Jones" movies,
you may recognize that Harry burning his hand
is an homage to a similar scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
[Screaming]
For the nail gag, Daniel Stern stepped on it with his bare feet,
...but...
the nail was made of rubber.
The flamethrower gag was done by flame throwing the head of a mannequin
and superimposing it with Joe Pesci’s reaction
by using a mirror inside the camera.
If you look closely at Daniel Stern’s feet you’ll notice that he was walking around
in rubber feet
to keep his feet warm while filming in the snow.
However, he was barefoot for the ornament gag.
The ornaments were made of candy glass,
but they could still hurt if someone slammed their
feet down on top of them,
but even still Stern insisted on doing the stunt with his own bare feet.
[Popping sound and screaming]
If you look closely after Harry tumbles over the trip wire,
you can see a glimpse of his stuntman that was left in the movie.
They originally wanted to place a mechanical spider on Daniel Stern’s face,
but 1990s technology wasn’t advanced enough for them to make one that looked convincing.
So Daniel Stern let them use a real tarantula for one take,
which means his reaction to the spider was pretty authentic.
[Loud scream]
However, his scream wasn’t real
and was dubbed in later during post-production
because he wasn’t allowed to scream on the set.
If he had, he would’ve scared the spider
and most likely would’ve been stung on his face.
Macaulay’s stunt double was a 30-year-old man
who was just a few inches taller than
the 9 year old actor.
During one of the takes when Joe Pesci pretended to bite Macaulay Culkin’s finger
he accidentally bit too hard and drew blood,
and Mac still carries the scar from that bite to this day.
If you’d like to learn more behind the scenes facts about other Christmas movies
click on one of the videos you see on the screen,
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