Don’t be fooled by their cute looks these kiddos are anything but innocent.
Maybe it’s their cherubic faces, their supposed naivete, or their wobbly moral compass.
Whatever it is, children have a way of making an already unsettling scene exponentially more disturbing.
Milly Shapiro in ‘Hereditary’; Linda Blair in ‘The Exorcist’; Danny Lloyd in ‘The Shining’.Credit:A24/Courtesy Everett Collection; Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection; Warner Bros/Hawk Films/Kobal/Shutterstock
Either way, creepy kids have earned a permanent place in the horror canon.
Ahead, see which movie and TV children give us major heebie-jeebies.
Why he scares us:Who hasn’t feared the kids in our lives are out to get us?
Alisha Weir in ‘Abigail’.Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures
He’s the very definition of a little monster.
Chilling moment:Heturned some poor guy into a Jack in the Box.
The bobbing shadow was terrifying.
Billy Redden in ‘Deliverance’.Warner Bros.
That’s when the hostile “Charlie” starts making his presence felt.
Is he a ghost?
Or is he a projection of Emily’s emotionally disturbed mental state?
Jared Breeze in ‘The Boy’.Chiller Films
But her dyed-brown locks and thousand-yard stare in this movie indicated a new level of unchildlike gravity.
Why they scare us:Just their presence alone is more frightening than any jump scare.
Sam Tyler (John Simm).
John Franklin in ‘Children of the Corn’.New World Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection
Why they scare us:We mentioned the “blood-thirsty zombie monsters” aspect, right?
Chilling moment:Prepubescent Sean matter-of-factly takes off his clothes and climbs into the bathtub with Anna.
Chilling moment:Rachel discovers Aidan, transfixed in front of a television,watching the video.
Anthony Fremont on ‘The Twilight Zone’.The Twilight Zone/YouTube
Chilling moment:Um,the moment he floated up to the window.
Nervous Mom (Nancy Kelly) senses that something in her own life is horribly wrong.
It was Claude Daigle who got drowned, not me!"
From left: Ingrid Torelli, David Dastmalchian, and Laura Gordon in ‘Late Night With the Devil’.IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection
), urging her to jump.
And oh, did you not see thosefreaky “Look, Ma, no mouth!”
As such she lurked about eavesdropping and causing havoc for members of her very extended family.
Macaulay Culkin in ‘The Good Son’.20th Century Fox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Dakota Fanning in ‘Hide and Seek’.20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
From left: Olivia Rainey, Jaden Klein, Laila Haley, Caden Marshall Fritz, and Lucas Jade Zumann in ‘Sinister 2’.Gramercy Pictures/Focus Features
From left: Martin Stephens, Barbara Shelley, and George Sanders in ‘Village of the Damned’.Courtesy Everett Collection
Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex in ‘Us’.Universal/courtesy Everett/Everett Collection
Kirsten Dunst in ‘Interview With the Vampire’.Everett Collection
Rafaella Hutchinson on ‘Life on Mars’.BBC
The cast of ‘Cooties’.Anthony Michael Rivetti
Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick in ‘The Omen’.20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection
Milly Shapiro in ‘Hereditary’.Reid Chavis/A24/Courtesy Everett Collection
Cameron Bright in ‘Birth’.New Line/courtesy Everett Collection
David Dorfman in ‘The Ring’.DreamWorks/courtesy Everett Collection
Brad Savage in ‘Salem’s Lot’.Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection
Patty McCormack in ‘The Bad Seed’.Donaldson Collection/Getty
Danny Lloyd in ‘The Shining’.Warner Bros.
Haley Joel Osment in ‘The Sixth Sense’.Everett Collection
Linda Blair in ‘The Exorcist’.Everett Collection
Jodelle Ferland in ‘Silent Hill’.TriStar/courtesy Everett Collection
Daveigh Chase in ‘The Ring’; Daveigh Chase on ‘Big Love’.DreamWorks/courtesy Everett Collection; Lacey Terrell/HBO/courtesy everett collection
