This Twisted Home Invasion Holiday Movie Does What ‘Home Alone’ Could Never

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• Home Alone is a beloved Christmas movie known for its harmless comedy and innocent traps.
• Better Watch Out is an R-rated version of Home Alone that takes the violence to another level.
• In Better Watch Out, the hero becomes the villain, turning the conventions of Home Alone upside down.

‘Tis the season for Christmas movies. While there are so many favorites to choose from, topping the list for many is Home Alone. Written by John Hughes and directed by Chris Columbus, the biggest hit of 1990 is the perfect choice for laughs and pure nostalgia. No matter how many times we’ve seen it, it’ll never get old watching young Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) pummel the Wet Bandit thieves of Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern). What makes it even funnier is how some of the things Kevin does to these criminals would kill a person in real life, yet here, they’re mostly fine. It’s more live-action Looney Tunes than anything else.

In 2017 came another film very similar to Home Alone in its setup, but with a clever approach to the familiar. Better Watch Out asked, what if Home Alone was rated R, and Kevin was way more crazy? What if, when home invaders broke into his abode at Christmastime, this kid did horrible, gory things to them that left them dead? It’s a premise many have wondered about for decades, but now we see it come true, except for the fact that Better Watch Out goes way beyond its limiting expectations. Watch this one and you’ll quickly forget that you thought you were in store for something else. Better Watch Out is much better than that.

The ‘Home Alone’ Movies Could Only Use Violence as Harmless Comedy

Home Alone is a film whose popularity has spread across generations. The same goes for the sequel, 1992’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (we’ll just pretend that none of those other sequels existed). There’s so much to love about it, from the huge, cozy house, the characters, and the warm fuzziness of the Christmas music soundtrack. But let’s be honest, it’s watching Harry and Marv get their comeuppance that we keep coming back for. There’s some innocence to some of Kevin’s traps. Oh, look, he put Christmas ornaments on the floor for them to step on! Harry gets covered in glue and feathers. How cute! Most of Kevin’s traps, however, are damn near psychotic. What eight-year-old is shooting people in the groin with an air rifle or roasting their scalp with a blow torch? You’ve gotta be a bit off your rocker when you’re dropping irons on faces, or in Home Alone 2, dropping bricks from several stories up. In the sequel, little sicko Kevin even went so far as electrocution, with Marv getting fried so bad that we got a glimpse of his skeleton. That would’ve killed him in real life and Kevin would be whisked away to a rubber room, but here, in the safety of a PG family film, it’s just simple good times. If Harry or Marv had been killed, it would have gone too far. You don’t even see blood in Home Alone. In Better Watch Out, however, it flows by the gallons… of paint cans.

‘Better Watch Out’ Was Marketed as an R-rated ‘Home Alone’ Ripoff

It’s a bit of a surprise really that it took over 20 years for someone to make an R-rated version of Home Alone; but in 2017, it happened. The film’s marketing and trailer promised horror fans the film we’d always imagined, where Kevin now has no rules holding him back and can slay thieves in gory fashion to his heart’s content. The trailer introduces us to two kids, Luke (Levi Miller) and Garrett (Ed Oxenbould), who are just a couple of years older than Kevin McCallister. This time there’s also a teenage babysitter involved as well in Ashley (Olivia DeJonge). It’s immediately apparent that the stakes have been raised, with more lives at risk. If the thieves in an R-rated Home Alone can die, then so can the heroes. The trailer shows just how different Better Watch Out is going to be, with shots of a home invasion going down, while our heroes are holding knives and guns. You’d never see those weapons in a Home Alone movie. Even the Wet Bandits didn’t have anything but their bare hands. It’s Luke though who seems a little off. Clips show him enjoying taking down the burglars just a tad too much, such as when he knocks one unconscious with a bat and then smiles with glee. Are these bumbling criminals going up against a child sociopath?

That’s exactly how the first act of Better Watch Out truly does play out, or what it wants us to believe we’re seeing. You’re expecting an R-rated Home Alone, so that’s what director Chris Peckover gives you. Luke is 12 and in love with his babysitter, which is seemingly cute and harmless. The real trouble starts when a brick smashes through the window with a note reading “U leave and U die.” Garrett does just that, only to get shot dead in the backyard. Holy shit, they killed a kid! Luke and Ashley flee upstairs, and we get ready for the bone-crunching gory kills to start. A burglar gets inside and finds them, only for their mask to be removed, showing…Garrett? Better Watch Out got you to tune in with Home Alone clone promises, but now that you’re here, Peckover tells the story he wanted.

‘Better Watch Out’ Turned Expectations Upside Down

Better Watch Out took the conventions of Home Alone and did what that film and its sequels couldn’t do, not just by giving us gore and death, but by turning the hero into the villain. We learn that Luke and Garrett faked the home invasion as a way for Luke to impress Ashley. Okay, that’s fucked up, but you can come back from that. However, when Ashley insults Luke for his error, he slaps her, resulting in her tumbling down the stairs and falling into a stupor. When she wakes, she is tied to a chair with Christmas lights. This isn’t a harmless crush anymore. Peckover turns Better Watch Out on its head not only by making our Kevin the bad guy but by making the people who come inside the good guys. When Ashley’s boyfriend Ricky (Aleks Mikic) shows up, Better Watch Out delivers the paint can scene it promised in the trailer, but now as an act of savagery, with Luke wanting to see what really happens when a paint can hits a human head. Spoiler alert: it’s nasty.

Kevin McCallister wasn’t just known for his traps, but his tricks, like using cardboard cutouts and mannequins to fool the Wet Bandits into thinking a full party was going on inside, or playing a violent movie to make a poor pizza delivery guy think he was being shot at. Better Watch Out gives us Kevin’s, er, Luke’s mind games too when he texts Ashley’s ex-boyfriend Jeremy (Dacre Montgomery) pretending to be her. He has Jeremy show up to the house and write an apology note to his ex, only to kill the guy and make that love letter look like a suicide note. Luke has now created his story’s villain so he can get away scot-free. By the end, there are no witnesses to Luke’s murder spree. As Ashley’s lifeless body is loaded into an ambulance, Luke watches from his bedroom window, just like Kevin watched the Wet Bandits be hauled away. His plan worked, and now his parents are home, thinking their son miraculously survived the worst. It’s one more wink to expectations, as Ashley wakes up and looks right at Luke, flipping him off. He is now completely screwed.

There is safety to be found in family fare. Home Alone might be violent, but it’s also innocent because we are certain everything is going to be okay. There are no repercussions for Kevin or his family for what he goes through, and Harry and Marv simply disappear, only for them to reappear for the sequels. There is no innocence in horror, though that’s not to say that Better Watch Out is a scary, mind fuck of a movie. It’s tense and thrilling for sure, but horror is therapeutic, so we still laugh at some of the violence, even though it leads to death. A family film can’t go against conventions. If Home Alone turned out to be something different from what we were promised, it wouldn’t have succeeded. Moviegoers would have felt lied to and turned away. Horror is the only genre that can get away with lying to us. The best play against our preconceived expectations. Would Scream have been a huge hit if it was just a straight-up slasher and not a wink to the tropes? Cabin in the Woods is a modern classic by telling us we’re getting the same old thing, only to go in a bonkers different direction. It’s why horror can have false endings and left turns and family films can’t. There are no barriers to the genre, only starting points. For Better Watch Out, that starting point is the comfort of Home Alone. After that, you’re on your own.

Better Watch Out is available to stream for free on Tubi.

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