It’s true, children should not watch horror films, but who says they can’t be cast in them as demon-ridden offsprings from hell? These little boys and girls will make any adult fear for their life!
Here are some great horror movies where the child actors are scarier than any monster you’ve ever seen.
1. The Exorcist (1973)
A sweet, loving girl Regan, suddenly turns into an intolerable creature, spreading chaos, destruction, and gallons of vomit. Turning to doctors does not help much, and the only thing left is to rely on God and his representatives — fathers Damien and Lancaster. What’s so scary about Regan? Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that she starts swearing like a sailor, projectile-vomits on the priest’s face, and spins her head 360 degrees like it’s nothing? Try all of the above and add spider-like stair climbing and straight-up levitation.
2. The Omen (1976)
Damien Thorne is not just a regular child. He is the literal son of Satan — the Antichrist. The boy with a charming face and a creepy smile, who was adopted by a US diplomat in Rome, turned out to be a devil in disguise. The numerous accidents and suicides surrounding the Thorn house were piling up, so the parents finally realized what had happened and who was to blame. But can a child be the cause of such madness?
3. The Shining (1980)
Many movies feature twins, but none of them are more frightening than the Grady sisters who meet the Torrance family at the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Since 1980, light blue dresses with frills and curly blond hair have become synonymous with evil ghosts. The girls have only one scene, but it is one of the most chill-inducing parts of an already amazing horror movie.
4. Children of the Corn (1984)
“Shining” is not the only King’s novel with freaky kids in it. Take, for example, the “Children of the Corn,” where one small town suddenly goes adult-free with only the children remaining. Led by the young prophet Isaac Kroner, town kids inexplicably killed all their adult relatives and friends and started worshipping the new corn god. Fun fact: Isaac was played by John Franklin, who had a growth hormone deficiency, which is why he looked like a 30-year-old in a child’s body.
5. Ringu (1998)
The urban legend of a videotape that kills everyone who watches it seven days later suddenly turns out to be a real curse. What is so special about this tape? It contains footage of a creepy girl crawling out of a well and coming straight from the TV set into your living room. People will never be able to forget Sadako or her US cousin — Samara. These two young ladies have deterred a whole generation from watching films on VHS.
6. Let the Right One In (2008)
A strange girl named Eli, who looks like she’s a regular 12-year-old, roams the night winter streets wearing light clothes; she does not fear the cold or the dark. At one point, she meets Oscar — a regular boy who regularly gets bullied at school and stands up for him. The thing is, she’s much older than she looks, and Oskar finds out that Eli needs to consume blood to survive. Yes, Eli is a vampire stuck in the body of a schoolgirl, cursed to prey on human blood for the rest of her days.
7. Orphan (2009)
Little Esther may look like a helpless orphan, but she actually is an adult woman trapped in a young body with a ton of mental issues. The psychotic tendencies and violent outbursts were the reason why Esther could not find a home for so long. She is incredibly cruel and insidious and has been sent to a psychiatric hospital before. It’s only a matter of time when this basket case snaps at her new mommy and daddy and bashes their heads in. The actress Isabelle Furman embodied pure evil so well, the cinema-goers could not believe she was actually just a kid.
