Is this line from ‘Home Alone’ the latest creepy example of the Mandela Effect?
People are freaking out about the Mandela Effect after discovering a line so many of us remember being said in Home Alone doesn’t appear to have been said at all.
What is the Mandela Effect?
For those unfamiliar with the term, the Mandela Effect refers to a collective false memory of something specific. It most frequently seems to come up in relation to pop culture and media, although it’s not limited to those realms.
One of the most well-known examples of the Mandela Effect involves many people remembering a children’s book series called The Berenstein Bears. In reality, this series was titled The Berenstain Bears. Same with the basket or cornucopia in the Fruit of the Loom logo (the company maintains the fruit was always loose, free of wicker constraints).
This phenomenon was given the name the Mandela Effect in 2009 by Fiona Broome, one of many people who believed Nelson Mandela had died in the 1980s when, in fact, he was still alive at the time. Or at least, that’s how we currently remember the Mandela Effect coming into existence—perhaps there will be a different story 20 years from now and the cycle will continue.
What is the Home Alone Mandela Effect?
Over the last couple of years, more and more people have gradually learned that something they remember from the beloved Christmas film Home Alone doesn’t play out the way they remember it at all.
In the film, there’s a scene where burglars Harry (Joe Pesci) and Marv (Daniel Stern) are driving around looking for Kevin (Macauley Culkin). Kevin hides in the nativity scene outside of a church as
"And they slow down passing the church and they look at the church, and [Marv] says to Joe Pesci, 'Do you want to go in there?' and Joe Pesci says, 'No, that place gives me the creeps,'" @dogoodstaybad recounted in a viral TikTok. "He never said it. He never said it."
@dogoodstaybad ♬ original sound - dogoodstaybad
Some cynics responding to the video insisted that she simply misremembered a line, which is not a Mandela Effect in and of itself. But with a little digging, it’s not difficult to discover that many, many people have had this same experience.
Reactions to Home Alone’s Mandela Effect
"I want you to comment what Joe Pesci replied," @genx_shawn urged viewers in his own TikTok posted in early April. "Make sure we’re all on the same page here. 'Cause most of us will remember him saying, 'Nah, that place gives me the creeps.' I bet that’s what 99% of you just commented."
@genx_shawn ???????? GenX: BRAND NEW MANDELA EFFECT (Home Alone) #genx #generationx #genxtok #genxtiktok #genxers #genxtiktokers #over50 #over40 #mandelaeffect ♬ original sound - Shawn | GenX
Sure enough, the comment section of his video was filled with people agreeing that they remembered the film the same way, and being shocked to discover that reality doesn’t agree.
In 2023, another video went viral on TikTok discussing the same thing. And back in 2019, u/phubans posed the question to Reddit, swearing up and down that they remembered the dialogue including the line "That place gives me the creeps." So what’s the deal?
What's going on here?
Conspiracy theories about parallel universes and shifting timelines aside, people have been able to offer up a few possible explanations for this particular entry into the Mandela Effect library.
Some suggested the line actually occurs in a different scene in the film. Others searching for answers disputed this claim. Then it was suggested that it’s actually said during Home Alone 2. This was ultimately disputed as well.
The way the scene is presented has both characters saying their lines off-camera in that moment. It would be very easy for there to have been an edit that included the line people remember and one that doesn’t, without much effort.
"Almost every movie Mandela effect is caused by there being multiple versions of the film or clips in trailers not used in the film or deleted scenes," @meter009 theorized in @genx_shawn’s comment section.
And at least one example of the Mandela Effect has been theorized to just be really intense gaslighting in the past. But is that what happened here?
Home Alone fans pulled up scripts of both films and couldn’t find any mention of that line. Various people reported checking the copies of the film found on streaming, DVD, Blu-ray, and even old illegal torrented files.
Several claimed to have copies on VHS but most never followed up with their findings. Several commenters on @genx_shawn’s TikTok said they checked their old copies and that the line is, in fact there, but none of them appear to have posted clips upon request. Another TikToker recorded the scene from their own VHS only to show that it doesn’t have the line at all.
Until we see a version of the movie that actually has the line "that places gives me the creeps" for ourselves, we’ll have to consider this yet another deeply disturbing instance of the Mandela Effect. What will be next?
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