By Emma Kelsall
I’m almost certain that many of us watched the Christmas classic Home Alone over winter break. The heartwarming story of crime, child endangerment, and a sadistic second-grader who turns his home into a Saw-like maze of murder weapons.
Despite being everyone’s favorite movie villains, The Wet Bandits surprisingly escaped their ordeal with Kevin alive. Although we all know that there is a large element of fiction to many of our favorite movies, what would have happened to Harry and Marv if Home Alone was real?
Slipping on Ice
After being shot in the groin and head by Kevin, respectively, Harry and Marv decide to split up to tackle the task of entering the house. Little do they know that Kevin has doused the stairs to the front door and the basement with water, freezing into sheet ice in the subzero Chicago climate. Considering the manner in which Harry fell (and by the manner I mean directly onto his back), he would have most likely fractured his spine. In the best-case scenario, this should leave him paralyzed, and in the worst, dead.
Iron to the Face
When Marv tries to illuminate the basement, he triggers another one of Kevin’s death-inducing booby traps. An iron hurtles down a clothing chute, directly impacting Marv’s face. In reality, his skull should have shattered on impact, as irons in the nineties would have easily weighed around ten pounds and the object fell from the second story of the house. Not only would he have experienced second-degree burns, but the iron would have likely broken his neck, taking into account the angle at which she hit him.
Stepping on a Nail
As Marv climbs the tar-covered stairs, he steps on a long nail, barefoot. This gut-wrenching scene may not have blessed Marv with immediate death, but a long, painful one. Tetanus – a disease caused by a bacterium that enters the bloodstream through puncture wounds – killed 314,000 people worldwide in 1990, the year the movie was released.
Blowtorched Scalp
Upon opening the back door, Harry is met with a nasty surprise – a blowtorch that burns the hat and hair off his head. Though this may have resulted in a simple second-degree burn, the location of this accident is what is most concerning about this particular injury. This simple burn would likely have developed into a full-thickness burn which in turn may have led to necrosis of the skull. Normally observed in high voltage electrocutions, necrosis would have caused Harry’s skull to rot, almost certainly killing him if left without proper treatment.
Can of Paint to the Face
When climbing the stairs to the second floor, the next booby trap includes swinging what we can only presume to be entire cans of paint straight into the faces of the robbers. The cans appear to knock out their teeth, but there is also a strong possibility of any fractured teeth being stuck in their throats when they subsequently fall down the stairs onto their backs. In addition, the drop from very high up on the staircase could lead to bleeding in the brain, as well as possible strokes, all of which could lead to death.
Falling Three Stories
Despite everything that Harry and Marv have been through, they somehow manage to rally and climb a rope halfway to Kevin’s treehouse. Kevin goads the robbers to climb the rope leading from his bedroom to his treehouse. When Harry and Marv begin to ascend the rope, Kevin takes out a pair of hedge clippers to cut the rope as they reach the halfway point. This causes them to swing around the backyard until they slam against the side of the house and fall on their backs once again. This bad landing would probably lead, if the robbers are lucky, to some sort of paralysis. Combined with everything else they’ve had so far, there’s a fair chance they’ll never get up from the backyard at this point in the movie.
Somehow, the Wet Bandits survive an ordeal that would have killed any regular human being several times over. This can only lead the viewers to one of two conclusions: either the Hollywood blockbuster is either not 100% scientifically accurate or Harry and Marv are immortal beings who should be studied and used as the guinea pigs for the new COVID-19 vaccine.
Either way, even after discovering this information, I doubt it will stop me from weeping at the reunion of old man Marley and his son’s family every December.
