Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Home Alone Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 8, 2015

Here’s a little reality check for those of you who have grown immune to seeing the steady parade of new gray hairs every time you greet yourself in the bathroom mirror each morning: as of the writing of this review, Macauley Culkin is 35. That’s right, the kid actor who portrayed “little” Kevin McCallister in the first two Home Alone films is old enough now to at least be pre-qualified if not outright considered for that euphemistic epithet “middle aged”. Now on the 25th anniversary of the release of the first Home Alone film, Fox is re-releasing that original, advertised as having been sourced from a new 4K restoration, in both this standalone edition, as well as in a Ultimate Collector's Edition which includes a re-release of the second film on Blu-ray and the subsequent sequels on DVD, all housed inside a paint can (if you need to ask, you’ve never seen Home Alone) with some additional swag.

Home Alone has assumed such an iconic status over the years that my hunch is virtually everyone knows the basics of the plot. For those wanting a bit of a refresher course, I defer to my colleague Martin Liebman's review of the first release of the film. My only additional comment would be that as counter intuitive as it may seem, the most important character in Home Alone may well not be either pint sized hero Kevin or even the two bad guys Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern), but instead the ostensibly scary neighbor Old Man Marley (Roberts Blossom). There are longstanding traditions in both Judaism and Christianity regarding angels (figurative or otherwise) appearing in sometimes shabby demeanors, and there's little doubt that John Hughes' screenplay is making a not especially subtle but still evocative point that one shouldn't be judging books by their covers, so to speak.

Home Alone Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Home Alone (25th Anniversary Edition) is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Fox trumpets a new 4K restoration for this release, something that may in fact tend to set the expectation bar impossibly high, especially considering Fox's generally stellar track record with its restorations of its deep catalog products. Home Alone has always been a fairly soft looking film, something that's at least partially attributable to director Chris Columbus' use of filters for things like close-ups of Catherine O'Hara, and many viewers may still find this new version still at least relatively on the soft side throughout its running time. The film is perhaps also surprisingly grainy, offering a kind of gritty texture at times that tends not to mesh with ideas of a traditional "glossy" holiday entertainment. While heavy quite a bit of the time, grain resolves naturally throughout the presentation. There's a slight but noticeable uptick in clarity, along with a somewhat finer grain field, at around thirty minutes into the presentation, a change which remains consistent for most of the rest of the presentation. The biggest difference in this release is that it's noticeably darker, something that tends to offer clearer delineation between gradations of tones, but which can also mask fine detail at times. Colors are beautifully saturated throughout the presentation, offering abundantly vivid reds and greens, along with a surplus of other holiday colors. There are still recurrent issues with crush—notice, for example, John Heard's black clothing merging with his plane seat in the scene where O'Hara suddenly remembers Kevin isn't with them, or some of the basement footage involving Kevin himself. Elements are in great shape (or have been restored to appear so), with nary a major nick, scratch or instance of dirt to be seen.

Note: I've tried to approximate (or at least come within shouting distance of) several of Marty's screenshots from his original Home Alone Blu-ray review so that those interested can toggle between full sized version for comparison's sake.

Home Alone Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Home Alone's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track seems to be (by and large, anyway) identical to that released on the first Blu-ray several years ago. As my colleague Marty Liebman mentioned in his review of that release, the mix is nicely robust quite a bit of the time, offering a glut of surround activity in scenes like the bustling family in both the credits sequence and the panicked moments when they realize they may miss their vacation flight. A lot of the Chuck Jones-esque moments involving the bad guys late in the film offer nicely done sound effects which often offer elements like outsized panning and well placed discrete channelization. Dialogue is presented cleanly and is well prioritized, and John Williams' ebullient score resides nicely in the surrounds and sounds great.

Home Alone Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• 1990 Press Featurette (480i; 3:52) is a brief vintage EPK.


• The Making of Home Alone (480i; 19:24) is another vintage piece with some good interviews.


• Mac Cam: Behind the Scenes with Macauley Culkin (480i; 4:46)


• How to Burglar Proof Your Home: The Stunts of Home Alone (480i; 7:03) looks at some of the Rube Goldberg contraptions and the havoc they wreak that are such a highlight of the film.


• Home Alone Around the World (480i; 3:52) shows various dubs in foreign languages of selected snippets from the film.


• Where's Buzz Now? (480i; 3:02) imagines what might have happened to this supporting character.


• Angels with Filthy Souls (480i; 2:05) focuses on the film within a film that Kevin watches.


• Deleted Scenes/Alternate Takes (480i; 16:46)


• Blooper Reel (480i; 2:03)


• Audio Commentary by Chris Columbus and Macauley Culkin


• Theatrical Trailers (1080p; 2:12, 480i; 1:51 and 480i; 1:04)

Home Alone Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Home Alone manages to be both a live action cartoon, especially once Kevin takes on the bad guys, but also a wonderfully heartfelt homage to self sufficiency and the real meaning of holiday spirit. Culkin is brattily adorable as Kevin, and Pesci and Stern are a lot of fun as the bumbling villains. This 4K restoration offers a darker image, but one that preserves the film's vivid palette. Those who already have Home Alone may not feel this new version requires a purchase, but those who haven't yet gotten the film should at least peruse the screenshots of our two reviews to see how they feel about the brightness difference, probably the single biggest difference this new version offers. Recommended.