Christmas movies with a buggy twist part one- Home Alone
By: Sheena Campbell
San Diego Clark Pest Control
If you've never seen Home Alone, you definitely need to!!
This movie starts out the night before the McAlister family plans
to fly to Paris, France for Christmas. Within the first 20min of the movie, we get the distinct impression that 8yr old Kevin, the baby of the family, is a bit of a pain and no one, including his parents, seem to want to deal with him. After causing a bit of havoc in the home, he ends the night by saying he wishes everyone in his family would leave him alone. The next morning, everyone has to rush out of the home and, in that rush, they forget Kevin. Once Kevin realizes he's left alone, he goes crazy and does things he's no supposed to (jumps on his parents bed, runs around the home yelling and eats a bunch of ice cream while watching a gangster movie).
Once Kevin's mom realizes they've left Kevin, they're already in the air and it takes her a while to finally convince a couple to give her their tickets for a flight from France to New York to get a flight back to the United States (she "convinces" them with $500, tickets for a flight in 2 days to the same destination, a watch, some earrings and a ring). She can't even call the home because of a storm that knocked out the phone lines so she's forced to hope that Kevin would be OK. Back to Kevin...he fights 2 burglars, who've hit other homes in the neighborhood, by out-smarting them and booby-trapping the home. He finally calls the police, gives them the address to the home across the street and they are promptly arrested.
By this point, which is late Christmas Eve, Kevin's mother is in a Budget truck with a polka band that she hitched a ride from. Kevin goes to bed wishing to get his family, not presents, for Christmas and promises to never be a pain again. On Christmas morning, his whole family comes home; he hugs them, they miss him and it's all mushy and awesome.
I'll be honest...I really don't remember this movie being as good as I remembered it. This came out when I was young so the only thing I really remembered about this movie was how Macaulay Culkin puts his hands up to his cheeks and screams; this is what most adults and kids did when this movie was released. And it annoyed me. But this is an amazing movie and it's a perfect family movie or to watch by yourself. There were a few parts where I actually laughed loud and hard. So why is this review in the Clark Pest Control blog? Well, Kevin's older brother, Buzz, has a tarantula. I'm not sure what kind, I'd have to ask Fred about it, but it's a pretty common kind. I liked when Buzz said that he fed the tarantula "mouse guts...so he should be good for a few days." Now, I don't know too much about tarantulas but I'm pretty sure they don't eat mouse guts-but I could be wrong. The part where I
laughed the most was when Kevin the tarantula on Marv's face (he's one of the burglars). After watching the extras, I found out Daniel Stern, AKA Marv, was originally told that he was going to have a mechanical tarantula placed on his face but when he got on set, they said that wasn't the case. The scream that Daniel Stern managed to create was so funny, which he said he tried to create from the movie Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock); and it's pretty convincing.
All-in-all, this is an amazing movie and I encourage everyone to re-watch it if it's been a while. It's a completely different movie if you watch it as an adult versus watching it as a child.
Commentary by your Clark Pest blogger:
I love this movie, and loved they used a Tarantula. This specific kind of Tarantula was a G. rosea aka the Chilean Rose Hair, its the most common species in the pet trade. Now as an experienced handler and keeper, Tarantulas do not eat rodent guts!
Great article Sheena!!