Editorials
The 16 Creepiest Kids In Horror Movie History
For whatever reason, horror movies and creepy kids seems to go together like cookies and cream, Cheech & Chong, and Freebie and the Bean. Over the years, we’ve been witness to enough unsettling tykes to fill what would officially be the world’s least desirable summer camp. So sit back, enjoy this pre-pubescent collection–and be thankful they’re not yours!
How’d you like to be watching some creepy videocassette, and then this drenched, raven-haired moppet jumps out of the freakin’ TV screen? I don’t know what would be harder to fathom, that, or the idea that I’m watching a videocassette.
This seemingly sweet little thing really makes a mess when she’s discovered by our heroes in the convenience store. Tiny and cute, yet with the ability to destroy your very soul. Kind of like Christian Soriano.
After being bitten by her mysteriously infected pooch, this Italian bambina turns zombo in record time, leaping from her mom’s arms and zipping up the stairs of her infested apartment complex. Cose da pazzi!
Before she was a bona fide hot chick, Mischa Barton was that freaky ghost girl hiding under Haley Joel Osment’s bed. And no, I’m not making a joke about how I wish she would be hiding under my bed right now. Oh wait, I just did. Never mind.
The grand-mammy of all messed-up horror movie kids, Rhoda Penmark is a pint-sized terror of biblical proportions. If you think the ADHD-addled rugrats you see roaming shopping malls nowadays are bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
This Stephen King adaptation really captures the way the original novel screws with your head, forcing you not only to deal with the horrific death of a child–usually a scare flick no-no–but then bashing you in the temple with the compounded horror of precious little Gage coming back to slice and dice.
Isaac may be the leader, but it’s evil ginger Malachai who really stands out amongst Children of the Corn’s brood of pasture-lurking ragamuffins. That shock of crimson hair. Those cold eyes. Pure evil. No wonder red-heads are burned by the sun so easily. So are most demonic creatures.
This movie taught us that sometimes maybe we shouldn’t go looking for missing children. In the annals of scary-ass dead kids, the boy in the potato-sack mask pretty much takes the cake. Yeeeesh.
Identical, blonde-haired kids with piercing blue eyes and a perverse, irresistible power over their parents. No, this isn’t a Connecticut toy store. It’s one of the most gripping supernatural thrillers of the 1960s, thanks to a cast of extremely unsettling little ones. Did I also mention they speak with a British accent? That clinches it.
The standard freakazoid kid in a horror movie has become a cliche thanks to the steady stream of Chinese, Japanese and Korean horror into the U.S., but for my money, this pasty-faced little cretin is about as scary as it gets. And his mother is even scarier! Skip the Sarah Michelle American drivel, and mainline your creepy kid fix from the source.
This gaggle of little girls jumping rope proved that even cute-as-a-button white kids in their Sunday best can be seriously frightening–a fact already known by anyone who’s watched enough Little House on the Prairie reruns.
What’s the only thing eerier than a vampire at your window? That’s right, it’s a child vampire at your window. Just thinking about this little bastard cooing at his still-warm brother to let him in can make the hair on my arms do the limbo.
Stephen King knows what scares you, and its two tiny twin girls standing blank-faced in a hallway and talking to you at the same time. In Kubrick’s film version, the scenes of the ill-fated Grady sisters are literally the stuff of nightmares.
The genius of William Peter Blatty’s novel and William Friedkin’s film is that Regan MacNeill is such a paragon of juvenile purity, twisted into an obscene, perverse plaything of Beelzebub. Kudos to Linda Blair for pulling off this impressive role, as well as the late Mercedes McCambridge for providing that unforgettable voice.
The classic image of little Karen Cooper staring out from under her dark brown tresses is one of horror’s most iconic (though ironically, not seen in the actual film). By introducing a zombie kid who goes batshit on her mom with a garden trowel and makes a late-night snack out of Daddy’s arm, Romero lets it be known that the gloves are off.
and finally, the single most creepy kid in the history of horror movies….
I mean really, was there any other choice? Damien Thorn is the ultimate distillation of the trope of the evil child in horror. Literally Satan in the form of a human boy, he fills us with dread with his every look and movement, despite being an adorable little thing and not really doing anything evil himself per se in the entire flick. It’s just the implication of that undying malevolence in the form of a child, and the harrowing events that surround him, that are enough to make us respect the value of birth control.
For more news and opinions on the world of horror, including a re-imagining of The Godfather as horror, a celebration of the music of NOES, and a humorous look at what Jason does on his days off, check out Brian’s daily blog, The Vault of Horror, at thevaultofhorror.net.
* Editors Note: This content is being republished so we can transition it from the archives. Oh, and because it’s awesome.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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