'Home Alone': Still a scream 25 years later

It has been 25 years since Home Alone reigned in theaters, but director Chris Columbus is frequently reminded of the movie's most iconic moment.

Nobody can forget Macaulay Culkin's hands-on-face screen scream.

"Literally, people come up to me on the street today and they do that scream pose," Columbus laughs. "It's like, 'Seriously? Twenty-five years later, I'm getting this? This is my lot in life?' "

But Columbus quickly adds that it's actually a pretty great fate for himself and the film produced and written by the late John Hughes.

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Home Alone propelled Culkin, then 10, to superstardom while topping the box office for 12 consecutive weeks. The comedy became the top-grossing film released in 1990 with $286 million, according to Rentrak.

20th Century Fox announced last month that it will re-release the holiday favorite in select theaters Nov. 8 and 11 to celebrate its 25th anniversary. A new DVD super-set arrives Tuesday with all five Home Alone movies, plus Blu-ray and digital HD versions of the first two.

Columbus says he knew he had something special going while shooting Culkin as Kevin McCallister, accidentally forgotten during his family's crazed vacation departure. The scream, which occurs after McCallister applies bracing aftershave, was Culkin-inspired magic, the director says.

"That was in the script, but it was all in the way Mac performed it," says Columbus. "We assumed he'd put the shaving lotion on and remove his hands. But he held that pose like Edvard Munch's painting The Scream and we had to stop ourselves from laughing and blowing that first take."

Joe Roth, head of Fox at the time, viewed the day's footage and immediately decreed that variations on the image would lead Home Alone's posters and promotions, Columbus recalls.

The scream, and the story (which concludes on Christmas Day), are now perennial seasonal favorites for a devoted following.

"That scream is something that everyone remembers," says film historian Leonard Maltin. "These things cannot be planned or engineered. Either they catch on and resonate with people, or they don't. And this one did."

Aside from the comedic performances, Columbus points out that the film's unheralded stunt men, standing in for bumbling burglars played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, deserve credit for the slapstick gold.

"It wasn't funny on the set, because, my God, those guys could have killed themselves doing flips on icy steps," says Columbus. "I was tense behind the camera thinking they were not going to get up after each stunt."

Home Alone's popularity has spun off urban legends, such as Internet rumors that Elvis Presley (who died in 1977) appears in the background of an airport scene. "If Elvis was on the set, I would have known," says Columbus.

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He re-watched Home Alone in full for the first time since its initial release last December, when the San Francisco Symphony performed John Williams' score live with the film.

"I had tears rolling down my face. It was really emotional," says Columbus. "It's not healthy to dwell on the past. But situations like this force you to and I was really moved by it."

He feels confident the $18 million comedy will continue to prosper long beyond its latest landmark.

"We'll still be talking about it at 50," says Columbus. "It's like those Warner Bros. cartoons — they always feel fresh and timeless."