I must begin with a disclaimer that I am quite possibly incapable of keeping this top ten list narrowed down to ten creepy kids. Since scary little children are one of my passions within the horror genre, I especially found it hard to narrow the field. In addition, I historically struggle with being concise if you haven’t noticed. On that note, I hope to distinguish my list from the many others on the web. I did not choose these children because they appear physically horrific or unnerving. Many will be disappointed that I left off such notable creepy kids as Reagan from the Exorcist, Carol Ann from Poltergeist, or Toshio from the Grudge. I tried to pick children who had leading roles, spent the whole movie outside of the womb, and who are uniquely evil kids. Historically the horror genre uses its creepy kids as an indicator of other societal ills. Often films justify the child’s horrific nature by making them possessed, adopted, abused etc. What makes a kid especially scary to me, is when they are utterly unpredictable, they appear normal, and there is little to no explanation for their horrific actions. My list argues that some of the best creepy kids are so scary because they challenge the way we see children. They take away our comfort by illuminating the fact that childhood and innocence are not synonymous. Furthermore, some people are really born bad and you can’t always tell.
