Vampires, zombies, ghosts, and masked psychos are all terrifying staples of horror, but there’s something familiar and almost comforting about these old-fashioned villains. And there’s one scary protagonist that remains consistently terrifying, and that’s children. The innocence of children, and the fact that adults are supposed to protect them, rather than run away screaming, has ensured a wide variety of creepy kids over the years.
Of course, horror movie kids can be scary for a variety of reasons. Some are just plain evil and are driven to carry out terrible and murderous acts. What marks these children out is that they are often working insidiously within the family unit, using the fact that no one would believe that their angelic offspring could in fact be a deranged psychopath.
There are also those children under the control of some malevolent force. The Exorcist’s Regan is the most famous example of this, but there are other plenty of others too, innocent kids who are possessed by a demon, ghost, or evil spirit. These children often evoke audience sympathy as much as fear and skilled horror directors know how to manipulate the emotions of their audience for maximum effect.
The third distinctive group of scary kid are ghosts. Japanese horror in the ’90s and ’00s in particular featured ghost children prominently, often with tragic backstories that caused them to die tragically young. But in all cases, there’s no doubt that the creepy kid is a popular trope that filmmakers will return to again and again. So with Halloween upon us, here’s our look at the scariest children in horror….