If you’re afraid of having kids, these little monsters will make you even more afraid. In honor of the Halloween season, The Nerd Stash presents the top ten creepy kids in horror movies ranked. While not all strange kids in horror movies are villains, the creepiest horror movie kids are the ones whose adorable exterior masks a genuinely sinister nature. For that reason, the kids on this list won’t just be creepy; they will be flat-out evil. So without further ado, here is our ranking of ten creepy kids from horror movies that will make you afraid to go anywhere near a daycare center.
10. Adrian Woodhouse (Rosemary’s Baby)
The titular character of Roman Polanski’s film Rosemary’s Baby is never actually seen on screen. Still, his dark and foreboding presence in this horror movie is enough to get him ranked on this creepy kids list.
When newlyweds Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy (John Cassavetes) move into a new apartment, they quickly befriend an elderly couple, who Rosemary instantly distrusts. When Rosemary becomes pregnant in a hallucinatory state, things only become more bizarre. She begins to fear this couple is part of a satanic cult. She is right; they’ve used her body as a vessel for sinister purposes. At the film’s climax, she pulls the curtains back on her son’s crib and is terrified at the sight of his eyes. The cult reveals that she has given birth to satan’s son. While we don’t see Adrian’s face, knowing what little Devil Jr. has been brought to the earth for and how he was conceived makes him creepy. And as appalled as Rosemary is by that reality, she still gives in to her maternal instincts and rocks her little devil’s spawn to sleep. Adrian is a creepy kid in that he symbolizes evil winning.
9. The Grady Twins (The Shining)
Heads up: this will not be the first time a Stephen King adaptation appears on this list.
Other than Jack Nicholson’s famous “Here’s Johnny” moment, the Grady sisters standing in the hallway may be the most haunting image from The Shining that remains etched into our minds today. These creepy girls aren’t the actual Grady twins who were brutally axed to death by their father. Rather, they are a manifestation of the evil force that is the Overlook Hotel, which wants to harness Danny Torrance’s power. The viewer can’t help but get chills when they say in unison, “Come play with us, Danny! Forever and ever and ever.” It’s even more terrifying than the images of their blood-soaked bodies flashing on the screen. These are not just creepy horror film kids; they are cinematic icons.
Note: One could make a case for including Danny Torrance himself on this list. As much as Stephen King hated this movie, he did like the little boy’s portrayal of the character.
8. Samara Morgan (The Ring)
Samara’s story is a bit complicated, but to sum it up, she is the product of rape and the human incarnation of an evil water demon. This gives her unusual psychic powers, which she uses to burn terrifying images into others’ minds. That power is so strong that horses kill themselves in masses. For this reason, both her mother and adoptive mother tried to kill her, with the latter succeeding by throwing her down a well, where she died from hypothermia and starvation after seven days. However, “she never sleeps.” Coming back as a ghost, she used her power to burn scary images onto a blank videotape. Those who watch that tape will die in seven days, just as Samara did in the well. It’s tough to say what’s scarier about Samara: her powers or weird contortions when she appears on the screen. Or maybe it’s the fact that there’s no clear motivation for her evil deeds. Samara is a blackhearted child bent on despair, destruction, and death.
7. Gage Creed (Pet Sematary)
No parent has an easy time moving on from the loss of a child. But as is often said in this Stephen King adaptation, “Sometimes dead is better.” When Louis Creed is introduced to the pet cemetery near his new home, he learns that pets buried there can come back to life, though they come back a little less pleasant than they used to be. It’s one thing when your pet cat returns and is in a scratchy mood. It’s another ballpark when you’ve got a human being with opposable thumbs carrying a scalpel. Louis learns that the hard way when he buries his dead baby in the cemetery, only to have his little boy return hellbent on homicide. Gage has very little dialogue in this role, which is a bit of creative liberty since his dialogue is pretty intimidating in the original novel. Still, his menacing expression as he hacks at his victims indicates that we have a baby out for blood.
6. The Alien Children (Village of the Damned)
If we’ve learned anything from Javier Bardem’s performance in No Country for Old Men, it’s that you can tell a lot about a person’s moral code by how bizarre their hair looks. Case and point, these creepy kids from Village of the Damned.
In this 1960 science fiction horror film, the residents of a British village all fall unconscious. Two months later, all the child-bearing women and girls are mysteriously pregnant with rapidly developing fetuses. They continue to grow fast after they are born on the same day, all of them having blonde hair, narrow fingernails, and hypnotic eyes. They also travel as a group and share a cold and emotionless demeanor. Things only get creepier when the children develop a psychic link that allows them to read minds and force people to do things against their will. They become a source of a national emergency, and for a good reason. Honestly, these inhuman sociopaths, with their eerie stares, have us creeped out even before they make villagers kill themselves.
5. Esther/Leena Klammer (Orphan)
This may be cheating since Esther is technically not a kid, but we’ll come to that in a second.
When a couple (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard) suffers grief after a stillbirth, they adopt a nine-year-old Russian girl named Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman). However, when kids are injured, and nuns and pigeons start getting killed, it’s clear that Esther’s childlike exterior is a cover-up. In reality, Esther is a 33-year-old murderer named Leena Klammer who suffers from a hormonal disorder causing proportional dwarfism. This allows her to commit heinous acts under the guise of being an innocent child. While this film upset some adoption groups and only had moderate success, the then 12-year-old Fuhrman received high praise for portraying this homicidal maniac. In fact, even at the age of 25, she was able to score points with critics when she reprised the role this year in Orphan: First Kill. Fuhrman may be all grown up, but she can play a convincing creepy kid in a horror movie.
4. Isaac Chroner (Children of the Corn)
While we are on the topic of major age differences between actors and the characters they portray, here’s another pretty terrifying portrayal of a creepy horror movie kid.
In yet another Stephen King adaptation, Isaac Chroner is the leader and “prophet” of a cult of children who slaughter every adult in the town of Gatlin. He declares the town holy ground that none may leave or enter. He also declares that to disobey him is to sin against He Who Walks Behind the Rows, the evil entity that the cult reveres. Isaac is a classic cult leader, seeing himself as above the rest of the children. He’s also not afraid to be brutal when dishing out punishments to those who don’t obey him. But perhaps the most terrifying thing that makes this creepy kid such a strong horror movie villain is his charisma and influence. These kids are hacking adults to pieces, and all because of Isaac’s message. That is power that is dangerous in wicked hands.
In a similar situation as we see in Orphan and its sequel, actor John Franklin was far older than Isaac, the character he was portraying. Suffering from grown hormone deficiency that kept him at five feet tall, Franklin was actually 25 when he portrayed the 12-year-old evil preacher.
3. Rhoda Penmark (The Bad Seed)
This creepy kid is so dark that she is an influence to any filmmaker today trying to create a movie with an evil child. Rhoda is a seemingly innocent and charming young girl who no one would suspect to be capable of violence. However, once a classmate who beat her in a penmanship contest is found dead, it becomes clear that Rhoda had something to do with it. As the film’s events unfold, the audience learns that Rhoda’s mother was adopted and that her biological father was a serial killer. This gene (which, full disclosure, is not real) seems to have skipped a generation and passed to Rhoda. With people consistently dying around her, it is clear that Rhoda is a bad seed that you don’t want to cross.
Movie trivia: In the novel, the movie is based on Rhoda’s mother tries to poison her, but she lives to go and wreak havoc. But due to the Motion Picture Production Code of the 1950s, criminals could not go unpunished in movies. For that reason, The Bad Seed ends with Rhoda being killed by a lightning strike. Things have changed, though, and the original ending was honored when the novel was adapted for Lifetime in 2018.
2. Regan MacNeil (The Exorcist)
We are cheating a bit here since Regan actually isn’t evil. However, a ranking of creepy kids just isn’t complete without her. Regan thought she had made an imaginary friend she called “Captain Howdy.” However, when she starts peeing on the carpet, shaking her bed, and becoming violent and vulgar, it’s clear that something isn’t quite right. While doctors try to explain it away, supernatural occurrences and changes in her voice make it clear that a demon possesses Regan and that her only hope is an exorcism. With terrifying moments such as Regan’s levitation, her frequent blasphemous cursing, her head turns, and a really shocking scene with a crucifix, The Exorcist was so terrifying that 1973 audiences fainted, left the theater, and were even given vomit bags going in. Theater employees even kept smelling salts on hand. Creepy kid is a bit too tame of a term here. Regan is a terrifying horror icon, albeit an innocent one who was a victim of an evil force.
So why isn’t Regan ranked at number one? While The Exorcist was a truly shocking film of its time, some criticize it and almost laugh at it now for being so over-the-top and for not being as scary by today’s standards. However, one film remains a truly shudder-inducing experience nearly 50 years after its release. And the creepy kid from this horror movie is scary enough to give adults nightmares.
And that creepy kid is none other than…
1. Damien Thorn (The Omen)
What’s scarier than a child possessed by the devil? A child who actually is the devil. When Robert Thorn’s wife gives birth to a baby who dies, he is encouraged to adopt a baby whose mother died in childbirth. He takes the child, and they name him Damien. Little does Mr. Thorn know that the mother in question was a jackal and that the bouncing baby boy he’s taking home is, in fact, the Antichrist. Only when Damien turns five does it become clear that something is off. With nannies publicly killing themselves and priests and news photographers who suspect something dying violent deaths, it’s clear that sinister powers are protecting this little devil from being exposed.
Damien has us terrified before we even see him. In the opening credits, we see his silhouette on a red background with his shadow in the shape of an upside-down cross, all to the tune of the film’s Oscar-nominated theme “Ave Satani” (which means exactly what you think it means). From there, he creeps us out every time we see him. While he has almost no dialogue in the movie, his blank stare is enough to make us cringe. There’s a scene in which he is brought to a church, and before he even walks in, he violently convulses and roars in a style that doesn’t even sound human.
Regan MacNeil was a victim of evil. On the other hand, Damien Thorn is the embodiment of the worst kind of evil. For this reason, he is the quintessential creepy kid of the horror movie genre that fittingly ranks number one.
Which Creepy Kids From Horror Movies Did We Forget to Rank?
There you have it. The top creepy kinds from horror movies ranked. Enjoy your movie marathon this Halloween, and then shudder when you drive past a playground.
