The 15 Creepiest Kids In Hollywood Movie History
#1
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.
#2
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.
#3
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.
#4
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.
#5
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.
#6
This gaggle of little girls jumping rope proved that even cute-as-a-button white kids in their Sunday best can be seriously frighteninga fact already known by anyone who's watched enough Little House on the Prairie reruns.
#7
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.
#8
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.
#9
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.
#10
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.
#11
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 childusually a scare flick no-nobut then bashing you in the temple with the compounded horror of precious little Gage coming back to slice and dice.
#12
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.
#13
After an Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for a month, it is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires who may frighten you to death.
#14
2002's The Ring kicked off the entire "American versions of Japanese hits" formula and did a great job. The chilling movie told of a mysterious videotape that would kill whoever watched it. The scenes shown to audiences included a horrific girl in white played by Daveigh Chase called Samara. Those images and the shots of the girl crawling out of a screen were powerful in trailers and posters and helped add to the film's already big buzz to make it a smash hit.
#15
After becoming a star with E.T., Drew Barrymore followed it with this adaptation of a Stephen King bestseller, Firestarter. Thanks to drug tests by her parents, young Charlie McGree is able to start fires with just her mind. She tries to control it with aid of her father but when the government starts hunting her, she's forced to cut loose. The sight of the young and cherubic Barrymore standing tall while flames ignite people around her was the selling point of the film and still gripping to watch.
