The Big Picture

• Becky is a bloodier, deadlier version of "Home Alone" with a teenage girl defending herself against neo-Nazis.
• The low-budget film impresses with its creative kills and gory scenes.
• Lulu Wilson's performance as Becky adds depth to the character and ensures that she remains human throughout her violent journey.

What is Home Alone if not Die Hard with a kid instead of John McClane? Well, for starters, it isn’t full of shootouts and exploding elevator shafts, and it isn’t rated R. “Die Hard with a kid” then is a logline better applied to an action gem from 2020, Becky. In short, it’s the story of a teenage girl who finds her home invaded by a gang of neo-Nazis and fights back with whatever she has around her. Maybe she sets up wooden boards with nails, or a trip wire, or maybe repurposes a squirt gun. Sounds like Home Alone, which was pretty messed up, to begin with. However, Becky takes that core idea and splashes it, crimson and pulpy, all over the screen.

With the release of a sequel, The Wrath of Becky, which sees Lulu Wilson back in the titular role, now is the perfect time to look back on the first movie and why it works so well as a bloodier, deadlier version of Home Alone.

'Becky' Goes Beyond Its Small Budget

Despite the presence of recognizable stars like Kevin James and Joel McHale, Becky is relatively low-budget, with production credits stretching just past a minute. However, this is no weekend art retreat. The directors, Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion, and the team of writers – Nick Morris, Lane Skye, and Ruckus Skye – make up a singular vision. The opening sequence introduces the protagonist and antagonist with parallel imagery, and as the audience gets to know Becky, they slip effortlessly in and out of her headspace. She sees things, and she reacts, and as the title character, Lulu Wilson performs more than capably as part of a clever film language. After school is out, and the neo-Nazis get out of prison, Becky is spirited off to a lakefront vacation home in the woods, and the production makes the most of this single location. It never feels like the characters are bumping up against the walls which then wobble. Claustrophobia is not the aim here, but a malleable sense of space, as Becky and Dominick Lewis (James) engage in their bloody cat-and-mouse game.

‘Becky’ Does Not Disappoint on Its Blood and Gore

Sure, Becky follows the rapscallion path laid by Kevin McCallister, but this time, there are medical consequences. Observant fans may have to add blood and gore to Home Alone scenes for realism, but that’s Becky’s starting point. What the film lacks in body count it more than makes up for in surprisingly gory and creative kills. After the lakefront house is occupied by the very recent ex-convicts, Becky finds herself outside and unaccounted for, which leads to the kid version of the gear-up scene from Commando. Where Arnold Schwarzenegger slid bullets, knives, and bombs into his vest, Becky has colored pencils, a wooden ruler, and a knit hat. She is in a shack, though. Of course, even a broken, sharp ruler isn’t designed for lethal use like the arsenal of John Matrix; it won't do the work for her. When she stabs a bad guy with it, he falls to the ground screaming, and she has to stomp it all the way through his neck, screaming right back – with fury, not fear.

Becky arrives at her miniature Die Hard adventure more broken than Kevin. Her mother died of cancer two years ago, and she hasn’t moved on. Certainly not like her father, Jeff (McHale), who’s dating another woman, Kayla (Amanda Brugel), and has brought her and her son Ty to the vacation home for a big, unwelcome announcement. Snippets of flashbacks suggest Becky’s relationship with her mother, though character work is interwoven throughout, and nothing threatens the film’s forward motion. In the present, Becky is needling people and creating friction with Jeff on purpose and doesn’t even seem to enjoy doing it. She starts as a petulant child and has to quickly adapt to a dramatically changed situation, one that actually allows her an outlet for long-bottled emotions.

Lulu Wilson Ensures Her Killer Teen Remains Human

Of course, Home Alone is a comedy, and it’s silly on purpose. Kevin’s violence is both kid-friendly and not part of a psychological spiral. Becky, being a modern action movie, is less tonally flexible and more focused. As a result, it may be more difficult to access, requiring a suspension of disbelief in the first place. Really? A little girl? But Becky follows that venerable path of John Wick or the Doomslayer, being simply too angry to die. Despite that Kayla hypes her up like Liam Neeson’s character in Taken to scare Dominick, who later admits she’s “clearly a special girl,” Becky doesn’t have any survivalist training or a military background. She’s just angry, observant, and like guerillas scoring victories against larger foes throughout history, has the home-field advantage. Not only does she know the property better than her enemies, but that property is generous with resources, like lawnmowers, motorboats, and even dogs. Be forewarned, animal lovers, there is that other John Wick similarity.

It may be an absurd premise, but the direction and Wilson’s commitment to the character, both mentally and physically, sell the most over-the-top moments. In fact, Kevin James’s ease with slapstick is an asset in the film’s toughest sell, a truly cringe-worthy medical procedure involving an eyeball. But for some in the audience, it’s always absurd when the typical action hero, whether John McClane or John Rambo, is substituted for a Jane. Even recent fares like Gunpowder Milkshake and The Princess market as comedies, with a winking acknowledgment that there’s just something off about this most literal girl power. It’s refreshing that there’s no explanation for why a teenage girl can take on adult neo-Nazis, and no insecurity, either. In its later movements, Becky teases avenues for happier or less bloody endings and doesn’t take them. It pulls no punches, going farther than a lot of female-fronted action vehicles. Becky herself isn’t worried about how she’ll make women look in the eyes of men, nor does she cede any of her impressive records to a savior or a mentor.

Home Alone was released in 1990, almost a decade before Blade and The Matrix brought Hong Kong traditions west and reinvented the American action movie. Indeed, Home Alone is not an action movie at all, and yet, it’s so rich with possibility, despite what the countless sequels and diminishing returns for both Home Alone and Die Hard otherwise suggest. As Die Hard in particular got bigger and louder, fans yearned for its roots as a contained thriller, to see a character pressed into identifying the best decision among bad options. It’s easy for anyone to imagine themselves in those kinds of situations and wonder what they would do. As a teenage girl with family issues, Becky is that anyone, and she rises to the occasion – then gouges it out.

Becky is available to stream on FuboTV in the U.S.

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