However, there are hundreds to choose from that share many of Damien’s chilling characteristics (some horror and some not) including Joshua Cairn ( Joshua), Dalton Lambert ( Insidious), Lilith Sullivan ( Case 39), Brahms ( The Boy), Regan MacNeil ( The Exorcist), Nicholas and Ann Stewart ( The Others), Tomás ( The Orphanage), Henry Evan ( The Good Son), Delia ( The Omen IV), Kevin ( We Need To Talk About Kevin), Toshio ( Ju-On/ The Grudge), Samara ( The Ring), Santi ( The Devil’s Backbone), The Grady twins ( The Shining), and Gage Creed ( Pet Sematary).
The ‘demon child’ of both the book and the film is sociopath Rhoda Penmark, whose mother (Christine) – spoiler alert – learns that she is an adopted child and is the biological daughter of Bessie Denker, an infamous serial killer (and believes that she genetically caused Rhoda’s sociopathy).Īs a teenager, the demonic child that had most impact on me was Damien Thorn (in Damien: Omen II) mainly because I shared my middle name with the titular character. The film was based upon Maxwell Anderson’s play of the same name (itself based on the 1954 novel The Bad Seed by William March and – for you trivia fans – the inspiration for the name of Nick Cave’s band The Bad Seeds). The film that arguably started the trope was Mervin LeRoy’s 1956 horror-thriller The Bad Seed.
This has spawned dozens on online articles looking at celluloid examples of the evil child sub-genre such as ‘ Top 25 Evil Child Movies’, ‘ Evil Kid Horror Movies’, ‘ 16 Creepy Child Horror Movies That Will Make You Not Want Kids Ever’, ‘ The Top 10 Most Evil Children In Movies’, ‘ We’re Baaack: The 20 Most Evil Children From TV And Movies’, and ‘ The 50 Spookiest Kids In Horror Movies, Ranked’ (to name just a few). One of the most popular tropes in the horror genre is the ‘evil child’ (often referred to or seen as equivalent to the ‘demonic child’, ‘creepy child’, ‘bad seed’ and ‘demon seed’ trope). Regular readers of my blog know that I enjoy watching horror movies and I’ve written articles on why people enjoy watching horror movies, a look at scary clowns in film and television, as well as more direct and indirect in-depth looks at my personal favourites including the Hannibal Lecter and Alien franchises. (Please be warned, this article contains spoilers if you have not watched the films The Bad Seed and Orphan).