A Saturday Night Live sketch starring Ariana Grande in Home Alone has been blasted online, with viewers calling the comedy moment ‘deranged’ and ‘dark’.
Last Saturday (December 20), Grande, 32, stepped up for her third SNL hosting stint.
During the NBC programme, which served as actor Bowen Yang’s swan song, the Wicked: For Good actress performed a comedic ballad to the tune of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’, appeared in an Elf on the Shelf support group, and took part in a Dance 101 class with cast member Marcello Hernández.
Other skits including taking part in a faux Love Is Blind reunion with the Grinch, played by Mikey Day, and re-writing the ending to ending to everyone’s favorite festive flick, Home Alone.
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The original, starring Macaulay Culkin, sees eight-year-old Kevin McCallister accidentally left behind by his family as they jet off to spend the holidays abroad.
While stuck at the McCallister seat, the child manages to fend off some opportunistic thieves, known as the ‘Wet Bandits’, with some excellent traps.
These include a piping hot door knob, swinging paint cans, and he even enlists the help of a hairy tarantula.
The original ending of Home Alone sees the McCallisters reconciling, and all being well… But that wasn’t quite the case in the controversial SNL sketch.
Grande, who was starring as Kevin, had donned a blonde bowl cut wig for the occasion and padded down the stairs to meet mom, played by season 51 cast member Ashley Padilla.
The rest of the McCallisters soon walked in, including Kevin’s dad, played by Day, and older bully brother, Buzz (Colin Jost).
Kevin's dad said that he wanted to know all about Kevin’s ‘little adventures’ while he’d been abandoned.
However, he never quite got there, because one of the traps his son had placed for the thieves accidentally went off.
The result was a firebomb, engulfing his head in flames.
From there, things went from bad to worse. One by one, the McCallister family were picked off, with some tripping on marbles, via a beheading, severed arms, nail guns to the face, and other sinister ends.
The eyebrow-raising sketch has been branded as ‘horrific’ and ‘disturbing’ by online commentators, with one X user typing: “Wow that s**t was deranged and definitely not performed live so I'm gonna form a class action suit against your ‘live’ claims."
A second social media viewer reported: “Not very funny…. Dark. Very Dark.”
Someone else said that the ‘traumatic’ scene has ‘ruined a holiday classic’ while a fourth wrote: “What in the actual world?! Not even remotely funny, either.”
Other viewers have come out in droves to defend the Grande-starring sketch, with one joking: “Awwwwww. The ending we all needed lol. Home Alone meets Freddie Kruger [sic].”
A second replied: “Ariana Grande just turned Home Alone into a Final Destination Christmas special and I’m not mad about it. Kevin’s traps finally won the war.”
Another commented: “Was laughing so hard during it, we had to rewind & watch it again! Oh my goodness, SNL, MOST excellent!!”
You can catch Saturday Night Live every Saturday evening on NBC.
Topics: Ariana Grande, Saturday Night Live, Macaulay Culkin, Film and TV, Entertainment, Christmas
Ella Scott