A Bloody Good Time 7.23.09: Creepy Kids

Posted by Joseph Lee on 07.23.2009

Horror films are a great child prevention tool.

Logo courtesy of Benjamin J. Colon (Soul Exodus)

It's that time again. Before this week's column, let's look at the feedback, like always. It was actually more positive, overall, than I expected. I have underestimated my readers, it seems.

thedouce had something simple to say: Nightbreed and They Live dont need a remake there fuckin awsome the way they are.

I disagree, obviously. Care to elaborate?

Guest#8295 replied with: I LOVE Brainscan. The others as well-very good picks-I'll take a Brainscan sequel rather than a remake-the original was just fine.

I don't know if a sequel to a movie most people haven't heard of is the right way to go.

555 showed more balls than I did: Love that you put Night breed on here. I would love to see a Near Dark remake. Also Phantasm, and Pumpkinhead. I was gonna put "The Crazies" but I guess they are working on that starring Timothy Olyphant. Awesome!

A Near Dark remake? Them's fightin words. Especially in today's post-Twilight, I'd shudder to think of what a Near Dark remake would look like.

Nick clarified something for the readers and myself: According to Clive Barker, he has all of the deleted footage from Nightbreed. Its just now a matter of getting Morgan Creek, the current license holder, to edit it back together.

I wouldn't count on it. Especially with, and no offense intended here, the slow pace at which Barker works on things. The man's brilliant but he likes to take his time on everything. It's a little annoying, as a fan.

Guest was quick to point this out: According to this article http://www.inquisitr.com/10761/john-carpenters-they-live-to-be-remade/ They Live is already being remade. IMDb lists a 2011 release. I heard about this a while back, and, although the original is one of my all time favorites, I am both anxious, and skeptical, about a remake.

Hollywood works fast! I'm interested in a remake, although I doubt they go the route I suggested. If so, I want a payday!

The Hitcher asks: Wow, I'd never, ever even heard of Black Christmas, now I'm off to buy it on eBay after hearing the review on wiki, good stuff! Can anyone tell me if the 2006 re-make was any good?

Haha...no. It was terrible.

JLAJRC suggests: I think Vincent Price's old Dr. Phibes character needs to return. How about either the Ghoulies or Critters?

I would only want to bring back Dr. Phibes if we could have Geoffery Rush reprise his Vincent Price impersonation that he had in The House on Haunted Hill. Critters and Ghoulies could be good...as they weren't the best movies to begin with. Well, Critters was entertaining, but not scary.

If I could reply to feedback all column, I would. But instead I'm going to move on with this week's topic.



Creepy kids in horror movies. What is it about horror films and their ability to make children so damn frightening? Is it because kids are just naturally creepy? Is it an innate fear of parenthood? I don't know, but there are plenty of horror films (and other genres) where the kids are scarier than any adult. This isn't a countdown, or a history, just a discussion of how many films feature children scaring the pants off of audiences. I suppose if I'm going to talk about this, I need to start with the two biggest.

First, obviously, is Linda Blair in The Exorcist. This movie is obviously the benchmark when it comes to creepy kids. Reagan does everything. She bitch slaps her mother, twists her head around, speaks in multiple tongues and voices and masturbates with a crucifix. I think the worst part about the entire performance is the not-so-subtle makeup effects that increase as the film progresses. As the demon possesses her, Reagan's body proceeds to become more and more diseased-looking. Cuts, scabs, and what looked to be scar tissue appeared all over her. So she began to look less like a little girl with a problem, and more like the hellspawn that was inside of her. Blair not receiving the Oscar in 1973 is one of the biggest snubs in that show's history.

Recently, of course, cut scenes were put back into the film, including the infamous "spider-walk" scene. This is early into Reagan's possession, but sets the pace for what is to occur later. For no real reason at all, she walks down the stairs at an awkward angle and spits blood from her mouth. It doesn't last long, but it's just unnerving. Watch it here if you don't believe me.

The other big choice here would be Damien Thorn from The Omen. Harvey Stephens in this film is everything he should be. Quiet, innocent and completely unbelievable as the Antichrist, for the most part. This movie only makes you believe he's evil when necessary and that's one of the strengths. It tends to show the kid as just a victim of circumstance, and his pursuers seem to be half-crazy by the time they find Robert Thorn to tell him the news. There are even moments when you doubt Robert's sanity as he begins to believe. How could that kid possibly be the son of the devil?

Of course when the mother's grave reveals the bones of a jackal, there can be no doubt. But up to that point, the film slowly reveals glints of something evil behind the benign exterior. The moment when Damien knocks his mother over a ledge and simply stares at her until she falls, for example. His creepy stare into the camera at the end of the film is another. The portray of Damien is the exact opposite of Reagan MacNeil: subtle, calm, and chilling for entirely different reasons. He doesn't have to speak in your dead mother's voice. All you have to do is upset him and somehow, completely by coincidence (although not really), you'll end up dead.

In my opinion, the creepiest kid out of all of these is Gage Creed. The worst part about Gage is that for the first half of the film, he's the sweetest and cutest kid imaginable. I don't really think he had any lines in the first half of Pet Sematary, they just gave him a general idea of what to say and let him ad lib. This is the best decision because it only increases the tragedy that occurs in this film when Gage is struck by a truck and killed. His father screams in anguish as we get pictures of the short life of Gage. Then he comes back as this.



Miko Hughes, you scary bastard, you haunted my nightmares with your portrayal. What's that? You were only three? That's it. I'm never having children. I'm fairly sure that Miko's performance as Gage is the best child actor role ever, because he is so good at being so terrifying. Not only that, but he managed to play a different creepy kid later down the road. While Dylan in Wes Craven's New Nightmare wasn't nearly as scary as Gage, he still provides some thrills in a scene where Freddy speaks through him. He still works nowadays, but I kind of feel bad for the guy. He hit his peak at age three. Miko, I salute you.

One kid is bad enough, but what about a whole town of kids? Two films stand out here, and the first is Children of the Corn. This film has a town full of nothing but kids. Why is that? Because they've killed every single adult. It sounds insane to think a group of children could kill all the adults but when Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton show up to Gatlin, Nebraska, that's exactly what has happened. The grown-ups are dead and all of the kids are worshiping "He Who Walks Behind the Rows", a malevolent force that compels them to do what they do. The worst of these kids is Issac (I don't care what you say about Malachai but he is just a whiny emo brat in my opinion). He's arguably the smallest of the kids (he has a growth hormone deficiency in real life, and was 25 when the film was released) but he manages to quote scripture and command all of the others without any trouble. When he returns later possessed by the evil force he worships, the scary factor somehow increases ten-fold. "He wants you too, Malachai".

Another town full of creepy kids is the village of Midwich, where 1960's (and the 1995 remake, although Midwich is now in America instead of Britain) Village of the Damned takes place. When everyone in the town suddenly falls unconscious, the women and girls of child-bearing age wake up and discover they are pregnant. They then all give birth to white-haired albinos who have the ability to control and read minds. Not only that, but they're evil. They also have glowing eyes, white with a small black pupil. They dress in little suits, speak like adults and have no conscience or emotion. They're cold, calculating and if they desire, you will kill yourself. Why they are the way they are is never fully explained, and I think that makes it all the more disturbing.

There are also creepy kids that aren't the main focus of the movie. The scenes involving them usually make that film more memorable. The first and best example of this is The Shining. The little twin girls aren't exactly scary on their own, but their haunting voices and the revelation of exactly what happened to them make it a incredibly haunting moment.



There are of course other movies like this. George Romero was not afraid to have a kid turn into a zombie, as he did in both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. Night featured a girl who is sick throughout the film, only to rise from the dead and kill her own mother later on. Dawn of the Dead has two kids in a brief moment attacking one of the heroes. What about vampire children? Salem's Lot has only one creepy scene, in my opinion, and it's the one where Ralphie Glick is hovering outside of his brother's window asking to be let in. The recent 30 Days of Night also had a vampire child, a little girl that feeds on a man and is promptly beheaded. It just goes to show that while normal kids can be creepy, undead kids are even creepier. Don't even get me started on the little girls in the Nightmare on Elm Street series that sing his theme.

What about those kids that don't induce fear, try as they might? I think I'm not alone in saying that Toshio is not scary in the slightest. No matter which version of The Grudge I watch, I have never found little Toshio and his cat noises to be the least bit frightening. Kayako, sure, she's disturbing, but not Toshio. He's actually quite laughable.

There are two films featuring children that I probably should be scared of, but I'm not. One is The Sixth Sense. There are things I find chilling about that movie, but it's not Mischa Barton or Haley Joel Osment. I find Osment's character to be sympathetic, and not once do I find him creepy, even if he can see dead people. The same goes with the ghost played by Barton. I feel sorry for her, but I'm not scared of her. Another film with a supposedly scary kid is The Bad Seed. It's a good film, don't get me wrong. But I am not scared by Patty McCormack's portrayal of the girl with no moral compass, Rhoda. Maybe I was just desensitized when I saw this film, I don't know.

There are more modern examples of kids who just don't get the job done. Both Hide and Seek and Godsend were terrible movies starring Robert De Niro that featured children that didn't scare the viewer. The 2006 remake of The Omen, while solid on most aspects (it's hard not to be with Liev Schrieber in the lead role) could never approach the original because Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is no Harvey Stephens. That movie had one chance to get me on it's side and that was with the teaser trailer where Damien is revealed. It doesn't need to be said that it doesn't get the job done.

This is what I'm talking about:


He doesn't look scary, he just looks like he needs a good night's rest.

But there are modern films with children that are spooky. The most recent, in my opinion, is Eden Lake. The film features a group of hoodlums that are willing to do anything, including kill full-grown adults for fun. They're not possessed or anything like that, just bored. Another film is Joshua, in which the boy kills and intimidates just because he is jealous of his new sibling.

I'm hoping that Orphan will be more like Eden Lake and nothing like Godsend

Here's the trailer. Next week I'm going over the dumbest moments in Friday the 13th history, and the week after that is Benjamin Colon's contribution, as he and I team up to debate whether or not certain films should be labeled as horror. See you then.