Home Alone

Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes to the grocery, he buys Tide detergent. While walking home, the two bags break, but no Tide detergent falls out.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Maybe he returned it.

No chance, we see him buy it and then use it in a later scene.

Ssiscool

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin goes outside the first time and sees the cars in the garage, the light isn't on. When it shows the garage again in the next shot, the light is on. (00:20:25)

Bishop73

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: The light could be motion activated. Either Kevin's movement or passing vehicles could have turned it on, regardless of the time of day. I have motion detector lights in my carport and they constantly go on and off in the daytime if it's low-light and cars pass by fast enough. People walking their dogs can also activate it if they are close enough. They sometimes stay on until I have to manually turn the power off, then on again.

raywest

That would explain it only if the light came on when Kevin "activated" it. It stays off during the first scene, and he doesn't make any motion towards the garage when the camera is on him. Nor do we see any vehicles or people pass behind him.

Bishop73

How likely is it that this movie - taken in 1990 - had access to the developed technology that we have today, to make automatic lights turn on?

Infrared motion sensors were around in the 80s.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin is leaving the church after talking to the old man that lives next door to him, he runs home. Between leaving the church and getting home he is wearing one pair of trousers, when he gets home he is wearing a pair of jeans, then when he is setting up the traps for the bad guys he is back to the first pair.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Kevin prepares to ride his toboggan down the stairs, the front door changes position between shots from half open to completely open. (00:25:20)

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Kevin is shooting the BB gun at action figures he has lined up along the laundry chute the baseball player figure he sets up is leaning against the left hand side of the laundry chute frame, yet when he begins to shoot at the figures the baseball player is standing up straight on its own and not leaning against the chute frame any longer.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Joe Pesci places his hand on the red hot doorknob on the front door of Kevin's house, he places his hand on the doorknob sideways, but after he sticks his hand in the snow, he looks at his hand and the letter M that was burned into his hand is straight up and down, not sideways like it should be based on how he grabbed the doorknob.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin is putting washing in and taking clothes out of the dryer, he places the orange bottle of liquid on top of the washer with the handle facing away. On taking the clothes out of the drier and closing the door, he turns to see the metal heater scaring him by saying "Kevin." Look over his left shoulder when the shot comes back to Kevin, the orange bottle now has it's handle facing outwards, and the top isn't on properly.

Continuity mistake: Kevin goes out to cut the top off a tree to use as a Christmas tree. The tree top he drags in is much smaller than the one he decorates.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Kevin sits down with a meal before the Wet Bandits arrive at the house consisting of macaroni and cheese on a plate. When Harry eventually makes it to the dining room, he is pelted with feathers. Look at the table to the left. A three part microwave meal still in its white plastic container now sits on the plate.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Marv comes to the back door while Kevin is washing dishes, Kevin turns on the Johnny & Snakes movie. Then he goes to get the pot and puts the pot by the back door. The whole time he has his sleeves rolled up, but when he opens a drawer to get firecrackers, his sleeves are rolled down. In the very next shot they're rolled up again. The shot changes too quickly for him to roll them back up.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Kevin is hanging up ornaments on the Christmas tree and he sees Harry peeping through the window by the reflection of the ornament, the reflection is not entirely accurate. It shows Kevin facing the camera with both the tree and window behind him. The reflection should have shown Kevin with just the window behind him and slightly to his right, based on his original position.

Home Alone mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Kevin is searching in Buzz' chest, some objects appear or change place after he throws the Playboy magazine away. (00:21:45)

Dr Wilson

Continuity mistake: When Kevin says, "I made my family disappear" and runs around the house, he runs to the foyer and spins in a circle. The window near the stairs is dark meaning it's dark outside. He run upstairs and the window in Kevin's parent's room is also dark. The lights are on too. He then goes to Buzz's room and the kitchen and it's light outside. No lights are on.

Continuity mistake: Right after Marv loses his shoes on the tar covered stairs he goes back outside to go in the window. When he's running in the snow you can see that he is wearing little pink booties so his feet don't get cold. When he is getting into the police car at the end, you see a short shot of his feet when he's almost in and you can clearly see he has black boots back on.

Continuity mistake: The plane for Paris leaves in the morning - around 10 am. Shortly after take-off (it is still morning in Chicago) it is dark outside the windows. Even though the flight path from Chicago to Paris goes a bit north, it would not get dark that fast.

Jacob La Cour

Continuity mistake: When Kevin plays the video when the guy comes to deliver the pizza, the guy on the video says "Hey. I'm gonna give you to the count of ten." When Kevin first saw the movie, the word "Hey" was never spoken. The line immediately before "I'm gonna give you to the count of ten" was "I'll tell you what I'm gonna give you, Snakes".

Continuity mistake: The Murphy's basement is shown to be dripping water from when Marv flooded the kitchen earlier but when the crooks are hit by the old man at the end of the film, the floor is dry even though the faucets are still running.

Continuity mistake: As Marv loses his last sock on the tarred stairs, his heel does not make contact with the tar. Later, when he picks up the crowbar to walk out, his whole foot is now covered in tar.

Continuity mistake: The amount of tar on Marv's feet changes from all over the bottom and sides, to just the bottom to almost none. Even though he walked through the snow, the tar would not just wash off.

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

Kevin McCallister: This is extremely important. Will you please tell Santa that instead of presents this year, I just want my family back. No toys, nothing but Peter, Kate, Buzz, Megan, Linnie, and Jeff. And my aunt and my cousins. And if he has time, my Uncle Frank. Okay?

More quotes from Home Alone
Home Alone trivia picture

Trivia: When Kevin is in Buzz's bedroom, he finds in the box a picture of Buzz's girlfriend. This is actually a picture of the art director's son dressed up to look like a girl, because the director, Chris Columbus, thought it would be too harsh to make fun of a girl like that.

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.

More questions & answers from Home Alone

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.