Jason, Jigsaw, heck even, crazy Jack Nicholson have never scared us as much as those adorably frightening children of the silver screen. Assembling this list of the creepiest young things made us realized just how many little devils are out there.
Don't believe us? Then why is just the sight of Linda Blair almost 40 years later still so terrifying? That girl from The Ring isn't just spooky because her hair is usually covering her face, ya know. And is that boy from Grudge 2 just too cute to kill?
Movies have taught us that ratio of cute to crazy is incredibly imbalanced.
There's nothing quite like a child's itty-bitty voice to send us shivering. There are plenty of frightening films that don't disappoint with monsters that can barely hold a kitchen knife. We compiled a list of 13 of the best. Take a look through our gallery of creepy movie kids and tell us which film is your favorite. And don't think we didn't notice that Stephen King has four tykes on the list.
CAROL ANNE, POLTERGEIST
A possessed tree and an awfully scary clown paled in comparison to a little girl's convo with a television that replied with static. The late Heather O'Rourke's girlishly gleeful "They're here" is one of horror's most iconic moments. Three decades later, our own obsession with the boob tube hasn't waned. When it comes to terror, sometimes the devil wears a blue dress, er, nightgown.
THAT KID THAT MEOWED, THE GRUDGE 2
By the time the sequel to The Grudge was released in 2007 (sans Sarah Michelle Gellar), the Japanese-horror thing had died down. But darn it, with his bowl haircut and kabuki pale skin, Ohga Tanaka left quite an impression with that feline howl. Bad movie? Sure, but come on, he meowed!
CHARLIE, FIRESTARTER
Drew Barrymore was sassy Gertie from E.T. with her career on the rise, and this aptly titled flick was about a girl who couldn't control her Carrie-like supernatural burning powers kicked up the tiny actress' sass up to fiery levels. When she said "Back off!" she meant it.
ELI, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
This adolescent tale of a small town boy named Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) and his undead pal, Eli (Lina Leandersson) was surprisingly sweet. If you overlook the fact that Eli solves Oskar's bully problem by bloodsucking and dismembering. Still, she's one of the few creepy kids on this list who inspired as much as terrified.
HENRY, THE GOOD SON
Just three years after being left Home Alone, Macaulay Culkin took a chance playing a psycho who terrorizes his trusting cousin (Elijah Wood) and family. Before this shockfest, the very idea of seeing a preteen getting offed was unthinkable. But by end, with a literal cliffhanger, all we wanted was to see Henry fall!
GAGE, PET SEMATARY
Clearly Stephen King has no problem turning children into monsters. Gage is one of the horror master's most evil. Don't let Miko Hughes' cherubic cheeks deceive you. Poor little Gage got hit by a truck, but boy did he come back. Big time. And now he wants "to play with you." Eeek!
SAMARA, THE RING
The Japanese horror invasion reached its peak with this American remake starring Naomi Watts. Sure, the idea of a "videotape" to watch videos is so 2002, but if anything the premise is even more relevant in the digital age where we are never away from a screen of some kind. Daveigh Chase's fiercely stoic raven haired (usually covering her face) Samara is the worst answer ever to Carol Anne's question in Poltergeist. Is that who she was talking to the whole time?
DAMIEN, THE OMEN
The son of Satan tale is really just an Exorcist clone, but Harvey Stephens had the creep factor in spades. Unfortunately, the remake from 2006 starring Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick lacked that demon-spawn glow. Stick with the original.
ESTHER, ORPHAN
Spoiler alert: The big reveal in this thriller is that the 9-year-old girl adopted by Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga is actually a 33-year-old woman from Estonia makes this character technically not a kid. But she was posing as a child and then she tries to seduce the father and kill the rest of the family. Plus, the actress, Isabelle Fuhrman (The Hunger Games) was only 11 while filming. And there is that scene where she hits on Sarsgaard. Big "ew" either way, right?
YOUNG MICHAEL MEYERS, HALLOWEEN
Modern horror changed forever the moment audiences realized the killer we had been watching at the start of John Carpenter's genre-defining fright flick was none other than 6-year-old Michael (Will Sandin). His blank, emotionless face housed the blackest eyes, as Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) put it "the devil's eyes."
REGAN, THE EXORCIST
Considered by many to be the best scary film ever made, William Friedkin's demon possession blockbuster has been parodied, copied, and sequeled to death, but Linda Blair's performance has yet to be topped. Beyond the head turning, pea soup spewing and all that foul language, the heart of Blair's performance was that no matter how terrifying she was, we never stopped believing that little innocent Regan was still in there, somewhere.
GRADY TWINS, THE SHINING
The creepiest kids ever in the history of cinema are the Grady twins (played by twin sisters Lisa and Louise Burns). They roamed the halls of Stanley Kubrick's Overlook Hotel stopping little Danny (Danny Lloyd) on his tricycle. Gifted with power of "shining" he was the only one who could see them. The sight of these two just staring back at us onscreen has always been more disturbing than the images of their hacked corpses. "Come play with us Danny. Forever
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