Best Horror Movies With Evil Children

Summary

• Evil children in horror films inspire fear, portraying kids as sinister antagonists more terrifying than usual monsters.
• The creepy ghost boy Toshio from
  The Grudge
  induces paranoia by silently staring, adding to fears of ghosts and tragedy.
• Films like
  The Omen
  and
  Rosemary’s Baby
  explore unsettling concepts of children being the literal spawn of evil forces.

Get a child, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. Well, the couples and families in some of the most horrific horror films of this century and the last all have children, and look what happened to them. As it turns, out, some of the most notorious and sneakiest killers or villains in horror cinema are children—evil children, to be exact which may or may not be too far off from toddlers depending on who gets asked.

In any case, evil children in horror movies are a recurring trope—one that never fails to inspire fear. Whether it came from the twisted sentiments of filmmakers’ views about children—theirs or otherwise, or merely a product of a wild imagination, evil children tend to be more sinister than the usual cinema monster. These films ought to prove that point.

Updated by Mara Cowley on December 17, 2024: Horror movies are filled with tropes designed to scare the life out of their viewers. Possessed dolls, killer clowns, the spirits of old women, and even twisted children are popular choices for movie producers looking for the perfect ingredients for their horror-fest. As it stands, there are plenty of evil kids movies, preying on a common fear that one’s bundle of joy can grow up to be a force of evil, falling victim to demonic machinations, and the unsuspecting family will be their first victims. This article has already covered a great number of films with horror children serving as the main antagonist, but there are many more worthy of exploration. As such, this evil children movies list has been updated to include a few more.

29 There’s Something Wrong With the Children

A Babysitting Nightmare

• Release year: 2023
• Director: Roxanne Benjamin

Two couples that are close friends have found their lives have diverged down different paths. Margaret and Ben enjoy a carefree childless life, while Ellie and Thomas have devoted their lives to raising their two children, Lucy and Spencer. The four agree to go on a weekend away together with the two children. After tensions arise between the latter couple, Margaret and Ben agree to watch the children so that mum and dad can enjoy a romantic date together.

Their brief tenure as babysitters goes horribly awry when both children plummet to their death, only to reappear at the cabin without so much as a bruise. But they don’t come back completely unchanged, as the children grow some pretty violent tendencies that could have deadly consequences for both couples.

28 Silent Hill

Alessa’s Revenge is a Gruesome Sight to Behold

• Release year: 2006
• Director: Christophe Gans

Based on the first game in Konami’s horror game series of the same name, Silent Hill stays relatively true to the original plot as mother Rose awakens from a car crash to see her daughter Sharon has run off into the town of Silent Hill. While searching for her alongside police officer Cybil Bennet, they encounter the rusted nightmarish otherworld, terrifying monsters, and a cult that will burn anything they view as heretical in their overzealous minds.

Rose learned the gruesome history of the town and its burning of Alessa. The dark half of Alessa manifests to tell Rose this story and is just about as eerie as kids come in movies. In the movie’s climax, Alessa ascends into the church surrounded by tendrils of barbed wire she uses to exact her revenge on the cultists who burned her, and it is just about as gory and gruesome as one would expect. There are arguments to be made about whom the true monster is, but there is no denying that Alessa may have taken things a bit too far.

27 The Unborn

A Family Secret Plagues Casey

• Release year: 2009
• Director: David S. Goyer

After a babysitting job from hell, Casey is visited by all sorts of strange incidents that eventually point to a horrifying fear that she may be haunted by the spirit of her dead twin who was strangled in the womb by her umbilical cord. Visting her grandmother, she learns that something similar has happened in her family before, and now that long-buried family secret has come to plague her.

Teaming up with an Episcopal Priest, the pair manage to banish the spirit who had far from good intentions for his twin, but the horror may be far from over for Casey, as she learns at the movies end that she is pregnant with twins, which may doom the cycle of her family to continue now with the new generation.

26 The Good Son

An Unassuming Boy Grows Violent Tendencies

• Release year: 1993
• Director: Joseph Ruben

With the writing skills of a published author behind it and the acting chops of Macaulay Culkin at the forefront, The Good Son was destined for success at its inception. Young boy Mark is sent to stay with his extended family as his father departs on a business trip, and grows close to his cousin Henry. At first, he seems like a normal, mild-mannered by, but the longer Mark spends in his company, the stranger his behavior grows.

Fascination with death and increasingly disturbing antics hint at Henry’s unstable mind, such as a dummy he throws off bridges, and proclaiming he wishes to kill his sibling Connie. It is uncomfortable, and the sense of unease only ratchets up as The Good Son continually raises the stakes, right up until the climatic finale.

25 The Grudge

Creepy Ghosts Hide a Disturbing Past

• Release Year: 2004
• Director: Takashi Shimizu

Based on a Japanese movie series known as Ju-On, The Grudge is known as one of the most prolific ghost movies of the early 2000s, known to scare hundreds witless. Though the ghost of the mother Kayako is known best from the movie series with her signature crawl and croaking sound, her son Toshio is just as capable of bringing scares.

This little pale boy is more silent than his mother, often sitting and staring at people without them even noticing, inducing great paranoia in viewers that forces them to glance at the dark corners of every room they are in. The circumstances around their death are tragic, but this just makes the story of these ghosts all the more disturbing, and does nothing to lessen the terror their ghastly visages bring.

24 The Exorcist: Believer

Twice the Trouble, Twice the Terror

• Release Year: 2023
• Director: David Gordon Green

50 years ago, the original The Exorcistterrorized movie-goers, people in the audience reportedly fainting or vomiting during showings. The Exorcist: Believer was never reported to have such a shocking effect on viewers, but it did deliver scares, with two possessed and very scary young girls at the forefront.

Friends Catherine and Angela arrange to perform a seance in order to contact Angela’s deceased mother, but instead, the two girls are found in a barn three days later, displaying alarming and disturbing behavior. As it turns out, the two girls have been possessed by a great evil, and terrorize the families they return to in absolutely horrifying fashion, their appearance twisted by the demonic presence in their bodies, and even going as far as killing the priest who tries to help them.

23 Village Of The Damned

Powerful Children with no Care for Human Life

• Release year: 1995
• Director: John Carpenter

Though mostly known for the every-popular slasher classic Halloween, John Carpenter continued his career as a successful horror director, bringing horror fans Village of the Damned in the mid-90s, a movie that proves direct opposition to the phrase “The kids are alright”.

In a sleepy coastal town, the villagers blackout at 10 am, and wake up again at 4 pm, and following this mysterious blackout, four women fall pregnant but do not give birth to normal children. These children display impressive psychic powers and very little compassion for human life. When the townsfolk decide it’s time to cleanse Midwich of their presence, they are in for a nasty surprise when the children fight back.

22 Goodnight Mommy

A Shocking Twist Reveals the True Evil

• Release year: 2015
• Director: Matt Sobel

With a Shyamalan-like twist near the end of the film, Goodnight Mommy makes its audience unnerved with every minute and every frame they see in the film. It follows the story of twins, Elias and Lukas, whose mother suddenly became distant after getting facial surgery.

Soon enough, the twin boys start testing the limits of their mother’s patience and affection all the while conducting their own investigation into whether she’s still their mother or not. What makes it work is how the movie keeps viewers guessing or even questioning their sanity or the twins,’ or even the mother’s.

21 Children Of The Corn

The Children Are Not Alright

• Release year: 1984
• Director: Fritz Kiersch

One usually expects something unfavorable to happen while stopping over in a countryside whose landscape is populated with corn plants. However, murderous children are far from the list of suspects in such a scenario. Children of the Corn explores that take.

Again, it involves an unfortunate couple who got trapped in a town that can only be summed up as a more violent version of Neverland, where the children’s inhabitants believe that anyone above the age of 18 is too old to live. That’s bad news for the two adults.

20 The Prodigy

Another Possession Story with Horrific Consequences

• Release year: 2019
• Director: Nicholas McCarthy

The life of a prodigy must be a tough one, with the weight of their parents’ expectations burdening their shoulders and lacking any peers who share their age and intelligence. Could they really be blamed if they snapped under all that pressure?

But that is not the reason for young Miles’ violent behavior. A prodigy since his birth, he could speak fluently even before he reached toddler age, displaying impressive intelligence and wisdom. It is soon revealed that the gifted child is possessed by the ghost of a dangerous serial killer, and he is using the young boy’s body to continue his crimes even after death.

19 Pet Sematary

Death Has a Bad Effect on the Resurrected

• Release year: 1989
• Director: Mary Lambert

The power of grieving people isn’t to be underestimated in this Stephen King classic. Pet Sematary happens after a doctor named Louis Creed gets introduced to a place where dead creatures come back to life. He went there hoping to bring back a dead and beloved family pet.

Too bad pets weren’t the only creatures resurrected in the place as some other grieving family decided to help themselves to a dose of revival for one of their dead children. As it turns out, creatures brought back from the dead don’t take kindly to the world of the living.

18 Brightburn

Twists the Superhero Formula into Horror

• Release year: 2019
• Director: David Yarovesky

Brightburn is first and foremost, a depiction of an alternate Superman where he’s evil yet again. The film puts its own twist on this rather cliched superhero formula by turning it into a horror film. A disturbed child with Superman’s powers is nothing to scoff at, after all.

Initially, it starts off similar to Martha and Jonathan Kent’s story in Superman. A seemingly normal boy suddenly enters puberty and starts experiencing some oddities in his psyche and physique. Dark and evil forces are suspected here as the boy threatens those around him with destruction and his twisted urges.

17 Orphan

The Sweet Orphan Girl Hides a Killer Secret

• Release year: 2009
• Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

There’s plenty that can go wrong with a horror film titled Orphan, and viewers can probably guess the cavalcade of problems with adopting a girl with a goth getup. Well, that didn’t stop a certain family from taking in dear innocent “nine-year-old” Esther after they lost their infant.

Sadly, things started going awry for the household after Esther was brought in. Some freak accidents that look like they might have been orchestrated started popping up. Moreover, Esther’s gaze is a little unsettling for a nine-year-old. One could probably already predict the calamity about to befall the hapless couple, but it’s still worth watching Orphan for how it will unfold.

16 Sinister

The Children are Victims and Killers

• Release year: 2012
• Director: Scott Derrickson

This modern horror flick takes the ideas of cute home movies families shoot and twists them into something quite sinister. After struggling for inspiration, crime writer Ellison and his family move into a house where a notorious murder occurred, he uncovers an unnerving tape displaying the brutal murder and uncovers a much bigger story than he was hoping for. He finds multiple snuff tapes showing families being murdered in various horrific ways, and the culprit of each being the youngest child in the family.

Though under the influence of the evil demon Bughuul, it is still shocking to see these elaborate and grisly murders being performed by a young child, especially towards their own family.

15 It’s Alive

A Shocking Movie Featuring a Killer Infant

• Release year: 1974
• Director: Larry Cohen

Welcoming a baby into the world should be an exciting time, but for parents Frank and Lenore Davis, their dream of having a second child quickly becomes a nightmare. The baby that is born to them is a horrifying mutant that emerges from the womb on the hunt for victims, already evil incarnate before they even open their eyes. The creature slays many unsuspecting doctors and nurses before making an escape, painting the opening of this 70s flick the crimson shade of blood.

Although viewers will be hard-pressed to find sympathy for this baby after watching the bloodshed unfold, the infant is an unfortunate victim of a drug experiment gone wrong, and the blame for its actions could be placed elsewhere. Nevertheless, It’s Alive remains a shocking horror movie featuring a killer baby.

14 The Children

A Disease Turns Even the Most Darling of Children into a Killer

• Release year: 2008
• Director: Tom Shankland

Going on a vacation with family can be murder–quite literally, in the movie The Children. A direct inverse to the Nicolas Cage movieMom and Dad, The Children brings a thriller tale of horror, starring evil children.

When some parents take their children away for a winter trip of fun adventures through the snow and some family bonding time, imagine their shock and horror when one of the children grows sick, contracting a disease that doesn’t just give them sniffles and a cough, but instead turns them into brutal killers. With helpless parents not able to just give them Calpol and call it a day, they will have to think fast and smart to survive.

13 Alice, Sweet Alice

Alice Goes to Shocking Lengths for Her Mother’s Affection

• Release year: 1976
• Director: Alfred Sole

With a name like Alice, Sweet Alice, people could be forgiven for thinking this is another safe-to-watch movie starring a sweet and adorable young girl at its heart, but those people would be in for a bloody surprise when the movie gets going. This movie is anything but safe, and Alice is anything but sweet.

Alice suffers as the second-best child to her young sister Karen, who gains all the love and affection of their mother, leaving not even scraps of attention for 12-year-old Alice. But one day, Karen turns up dead after being brutally murdered, and of course, everyone suspects the jealous sister, leaving the question of how far a child would go for the love of a parent.

12 The Exorcist

This Twisting Flick Had Audience Members Fainting in the Theatre

• Release year: 1973
• Director: William Friedkin

The Exorcist is one of the most notable horror films of its generation, and it contributed a lot to horror cinema for decades. Even today, it still holds up well thanks to the excellent makeup and acting by Linda Blair. The story is simple enough; a girl starts off sick and progressively descends into a demonic trance while her mother copes with the difficulties of rearing such a child.

Here, the journey of the exorcism itself is worth watching, more so than waiting for the result. Never have exorcisms been this visceral or spine-chilling, and even to this day, many exorcism copycats still fail to reproduce the success or the atmosphere of The Exorcist.

11 Who Can Kill A Child?

Even Adults are Helpless Against the Killer Children

• Release year: 1976
• Director: Narciso Ibáñez Serrador

Who Can Kill a Child? explores the notion of the protagonist’s victims being helpless against their aggressors, since the latter are children. That’s explained well enough in the title. It begins when a lovey-dovey couple goes for a vacation on a strange island.

They soon discover that the island’s small town is mostly populated with children. Eventually, the couple discovers the madness that befell these children. It turns out the kids were responsible for the disappearance of all the adults in the town, having murdered most of them. As luck would have it, the couple is next in line in the grindhouse.

10 Eden Lake

Teens Terrorize A Couple on a Romantic Retreat

• Release year: 2008
• Director: James Watkins

Some of the most effective horror movies are ones that stay away from supernatural scares such as ghosts and demons and instead are based on real-life threats that do occur, such as home invasions or youth violence. This is what Eden Lake does with brilliance, following the story of a couple on a romantic getaway in a remote location who quickly discover the location they have chosen may not be as idyllic as they originally thought.

Plagued by a gang of violent youths, these evil teens are deadset on visiting every kind of torture on the young couple, transforming the holiday into a fight for survival. The stories in real life that resemble the story of Eden Lake only make this movie all the more horrific and tough to watch.