A Guilty Pleasure is an oxymoron, of course, since no true pleasure should make you feel guilty, but we all have enough skeletons in our closet to make a palaeontologist envious. And I’m rattling mine now!
Home Alone (1990), Home Alone 2- Lost In New York (1992)
Make no bones about it- bones/skeletons, see what I did then- the first two Home Alone films are misanthropic, dark and violent pieces of work indeed. These are stories about child abuse, after all. Tales of smarmy yuppie parents who are so wrapped up in their own petty little troubles that their kids are pretty much invisible to them. Well one kid in particular is: Kevin. He’s so invisible, in fact, that they go on holiday and leave him behind to fend for himself. Twice! Even in New York’s low life infested Times Square!
And the poor kid really has to fight to survive on his own, too; in both films he’s attacked by two ruthless criminals. Many times. But he fights back by creating an array of sadistic weapons worthy of the Saw films and tortures and torments them.
In Home Alone one and two, Macaulay Culkin plays the neglected Kevin with a maniacal glee worthy of Ledger’s Joker. And it’s no wonder these cheerfully demented films went off the boil after he left and was replaced by an actor who was as unmemorable as he was dull and stupid.
Paul
Spinetingler Award nominee Paul D. Brazill was born in England and lives in Poland. His writing has appeared in a veritable cornucopia of classy print and electronic magazines and anthologies, including the 2011 Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime. His noir/horror series Drunk On The Moon and short story collection Brit Grit are out now and 13 Shots Of Noir is out soon.He writes a column for Pulp Metal Magazine and contributes to Mean Streets Magazine.