(This is the beginnings of a concept I have for a project in which I would compile and analyze horror films throughout the decades that center around children – whether they are in danger or are corrupted and become the danger. I’ve already compiled a list of about 25 movies but feel free to give me some suggestions if you have them. I think I will also include books as well since several are book adaptations and others pair well with unrelated books I’ve read so book suggestions are welcome too)
A little girl wrapped snuggly in a red shawl carrying goodies to her loving grandmother, heading obliviously towards the jaws of a wolf. Two little children abandoned in the woods walk for miles and take refuge at the first house they find – the house of a witch planning to cook them up and eat them. Little girls targeted for their innocence and beauty. Little boys targeted for their playful and trusting natures. Story after story, children are beset by malicious forces because they are easy, vulnerable marks when abandoned to fend for themselves.
Horror as a genre has always existed, even before the term was coined. Plutarch wrote of the ghost of a murderer named Damon. Pliny the Younger wrote a tale of a haunted house in Athens. Witches, werewolves, vampires, and demons featured in stories well before the 18th century. Some people point to Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto as the first official horror novel.
Children featuring prominently in horror can be found most evidently in our classic fairytales, which were around long before the Brothers Grimm collected and published them in the 19th century. Before we could read them, these stories were told orally and were passed down generationally. The Brothers did adapt the tales slightly to bring them to a wider audience, making the stories more bourgeois to reflect values of middle-class societal structures. Hans Christian Andersen did something similar as his versions of the stories conveyed his interest in notions of Christian behaviors – searching for and protecting your soul.
Horror has always been allegorical. It has always functioned as a mirror, to show us the darkest sides of humanity as a warning for what could be or what already is. Sometimes it is dressed up as something easier to digest, easier to externalize and separate from ourselves, but other times it is brutally honest, a raw wound left open for us to see and to feel. If we see evil in a Hollywood monster, it is because we know the traits of evil intimately. Humanity brought evil into this world; it takes a monster to spot a monster.
Using children in horror, whether they are in peril or have been corrupted and become the peril, is such a popular plot device because we see children as the purest, most innocent amongst us. Children are vulnerable, trusting, and accepting by nature. We want to believe humans are not born evil, and children are our proof that we are not born with prejudices or vices. Therefore, a child being targeted by a malicious entity is an attack on our collective humanity. Corrupt the child and you remove the safety net of our initial purity, leaving only the darkness festering beneath the surface. A lot of people most likely remember their own loss of innocence and the feelings of shame, anger, or sadness that accompanied it. Suddenly, there it is mirrored back to us on the screen or the pages of a book. No matter how fantastical, these stories are in essence still the stories of our lives, of our pains and our fears.
Which is a major explanation for why these stories are always being written. The writers behind these books and screenplays are drawing from their own experiences and nightmares. Stephen King once said his horror novels are “a kind of psychological protection. It’s like drawing a magic circle around myself and my family.” In other words, if I put it down on paper, it can’t happen in real life. It’s a protection spell, a ward against danger. It can also simply be an outlet to release your overwhelming emotions. I think the younger generations breaking into these industries right now are giving us beautifully raw, genuine stories that voice their pain and fear when faced with the state of the world they’ve inherited. They write horror so well because they were robbed of a carefree, innocent childhood as the world continues to grow harsher by the year. As for the older generations, their horror stories come from a place of fear for the younger people in their lives as they watch them struggling to overcome and uproot obstacles and systems that knock them down time and time again as not enough people are helping to mold a better future for the youth, choosing instead to hold onto their luxuries and creature comforts. Horror shows us the seed being planted and the havoc it wreaks if you don’t tear it out by the roots. What’s more effective a wake-up call than placing a child in front of you on the screen or on the page and letting them scream their pain and anguish at you? These stories dare you not to care, not to hurt alongside the children. They dare you to look, to see, to understand, and still refuse to do a damn thing to help.
Would we be less anxious if we weren’t constantly faced with these stories that are actually mirrors reflecting our monstrousness back to us? Well, people keep writing these books and movies, and we keep consuming them so we must get something out of it, right? Some people truly believe ignorance is bliss and live accordingly, but I don’t believe they are in actuality any happier or less anxious and lost than the rest of us are. Horror is honest. Horror tells us we aren’t alone in our terror. Horror tells us we can stave off evil if we trust in each other. We can all make it, if we just listen to the children.
For All Story Lovers! 