The "Home Alone" / "NiGHTS into Dreams" connection
December 6, 2024
NiGHTS into Dreams is one of those games I tend to think about when Christmas rolls around. It’s one of my favourites from the Saturn lineup, and it also had a free Christmas version.
In it, there’s a song I really love that plays on the level select screen called Gate of Your Dream. You can check it out on Apple Music or Spotify. Around 8 seconds into the track, you can hear someone saying “hello? helllooo?”. That someone is Macaulay Culkin, and the sample is from Home Alone.
The clip happens near the beginning of the film after Culkin’s character heads down to the basement after he’s home alone (spoilers). You can watch the scene in question on YouTube, conveniently turned into an ad by a home heating company. 1
This is something I discovered when rewatching the film in 2020. I totally did the pointing at the TV screen meme when I heard it — the NiGHTS song is burned into my brain, but I hadn’t seen Home Alone since it was in theatres.
I still have no idea how or if this sample was licensed.
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… for as long as that lasts. The scene takes place around 20 minutes into the version of the film that’s on Disney Plus. ↩