17 Horror Movies With the Creepiest Kids You'd Never Want to Meet

Kids are bundles of joy and innocence . . . which makes them easy horror movie material. Introduce children with an evil spirit or a grisly death, and you get a movie like The Ring. Suffice to say, not all kids get the G-rated Disney treatment. While it's skyrocketing into critical darling territory for its portrayal of a perturbing little girl named Charlie, Hereditary is far from the first movie to feature a creepy child. From the Grady twins in The Shining to the child cult leader in Children of the Corn, kids have been stirring up trouble in movies for a while.

Grab your holy water and put your local exorcist on speed dial — we've rounded up 17 of the creepiest children in modern horror cinema. Please note that spoilers follow! (Though we've saved the most recent movie, Hereditary, for the last slide.)