It's a preconceived notion that girls are more emotional, more sensitive, and thus more susceptible to potentially dark forces. People see an inherent fragility in young girls that's almost doll-like.
And dolls are the scariest. Continuing what I was saying above, girls may be seen as somehow closer to "nature"—further from "civilization" than boys. Anthropologist Sherri Ortner has a famous essay about how, cross-culturally, females are closer to nature than males and that this makes them more of a "border figure" —potentially more threatening.
And it is often girls who become possessed, grow up into witches, etc. The boundaries of their "selves" just seem more permeable than boys. I would say the water that's always flowing when Samara [from The Ring ] is around represents these permeable borders.
There is always an unknown about women, their bodies and ther emotions that evokes fear in men. So, it may just be a manifestation of widespread understandings of gender representations.
As far back as The Bible , women are often looked upon as conduits for evil. It was at the provocation of Eve that Adam ate the apple so they say. Perhaps it has become easier to demonize girls look how Hillary Clinton is treated in the media compared even to a male counterpart like Bernie Sanders—they don't go on about his hair or the "shrillness" of his voice, and there are no nutcrackers fashioned after him.
Granted, any one of us that lived through sixth grade lunch knows that preteen girls can be pretty freaking evil. But if you notice, any horrific children that were in leadership roles are often boys The Omen, Children of the Corn , Village of Damned , Joshua , etc. Sadako Yamamura is the principal antagonist of Koji Suzuki's Ring Trilogy novels, providing the inspiration for the eponymous character in the Japanese adaptation of the first book as well as Samara Morgan in the American remake of the film In Japanese, her name is a compund of sada "chaste" and ko "child".
She possesses the power of nensha , or the ability to burn photographic images from her memory onto inanimate surfaces as well as the minds of others. Both Sadako and Samara are depicted as otherworldly young girls with a deathly pallor, tattered nightgown and iconic long black mane. It's likely an extension of subverting purity and older ideas of gender norms. Gender roles would have us believe boys are, by nature, rough, while little girls own sweetness. As young girls are often portrayed as angelic, the turn to demonic is more impactful.
For some reason the films that popped in my head first from this question were The Omen , Rosemary's Baby , and The Babadook , so maybe I don't make that gender association immediately. But, of course, The Exorcist may be the most famous "creepy child" film, and The Bad Seed and many more come to mind as I think about it further. I think for many viewers, everything I said above about kids as cute and vulnerable applies all the more to young girls, and might come with extra societal baggage of "purity.
There's probably a way more psychologically complex answer that goes back centuries to illustrations of young, innocent girls, but it may be as simple as this: People don't expect girls to be doing creepy things. I've never given too much thought to that, because I think it takes you down a hole of generalized female stereotypes and thoughts on male film directors that aren't always true.
Personally, I think both little girls and boys have the capacity for being extremely creepy. When we're watching a horror film, we root for the people on screen who need protection and represent non-threatening vulnerability: the teen in the wheelchair being stalked by the hulking, masked slasher villain or the old blind lady being hunted by her recently turned zombie husband. When the evil force to be reckoned with is the ultimate cultural representation of non-threatening vulnerability, a little girl, it throws off our mental and emotional stability.
She needs to be… mutilated? Generally, with some iconic exceptions, I think that's a non-American horror trope and perhaps has something to do with areas like China, Taiwan, or Pakistan where unwanted female babies are aborted, killed, or abandoned. I think that highlights the classic "return of the repressed" narrative in most ghost stories or horror flicks.
Dolls are frozen in time—human, but not human. There's no life inside. There's a "dead" quality to dolls that can be creepy since their eyes are open, and they are often smiling and lifelike.
It's the ultimate dichotomy that brings to mind a child's corpse. With clowns, it's because they are wearing phony, painted-on smiles. Anyone wearing a mask can't be trusted. Just look at John Wayne Gacy! With dolls, it's because they are hollow and soulless. Simulacra, automatons, effigies, dolls, and mannequins—they look a lot like people, but they aren't.
They lack emotion and just stare on forever with the same blank face. I've never liked dolls or clowns. Dolls can be creepy, because we expect them to be our playmates, bodyguards, and best friends when we are young and vulnerable. We also control their actions completely. So, for them to get up and run around the house on their own, or try to strangle us, that leaves us powerless and terrified.
As kids, we need our parents and friends even if they are toys! I think an element of the uncanny valley figures into it, too, if it's more human-seeming. Any faux human, like a mannequin, has an uneasy element to it… or at least to me. For something non-human to start behaving as human on its own can be truly scary.
I was never born with the "clowns are scary" wiring in my brain, so it's hard for me to see the fear in them—but again, it's another thing we expect to make us happy, especially when we're vulnerable and young. We don't want to find out that the man at the circus is laughing for all the wrong reasons. Annabelle, The Conjuring Billy, Dead Silence Fats, Magic The clown doll in Poltergeist Chucky, Child's Play Jigsaw, Saw Zuni doll , Trilogy of Terror Fletcher, Making Contact The mannequins of Tourist Trap Annabelle, Annabelle Horror News.
This gets, again, to what's scary, fundamentally. And what's fundamentally scary is when something suddenly appears to be its opposite. Dolls are inanimate. So when they become animate, it overthrows all our neat categories and structures.
Whitney Friedlander is an entertainment journalist with, what some may argue, an unhealthy love affair with her TV. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, daughter, and very photogenic cat.
Share Tweet Submit Pin. Sorry John, but I don't believe it. I believe you were told this, I just don't believe it's true. MeatTrademark Nobody argues that the question isn't worded perfectly, yet this answer answers the much better question hidden in it. Just change "most especially the good ones " into "many" and viola! I didn't try to reword the question. I'd have started from a different premise if I just rewrote the question Show 6 more comments.
I think your question is beginning from a false premise. From the trailer for The Strangers: "Why are you doing this to us? Meat Trademark Meat Trademark 7, 2 2 gold badges 52 52 silver badges 79 79 bronze badges. While I agree that the line "most of the horror movies especially the good ones involve children" is over-generalizing and subjective.
When concentrating on the phrase "especially the good ones" , your answer provides some value, but that would be concentrating on the worst out of an otherwise interesting question. Most invasion movies, vampire movies, zombie movies, monster movies, etc, do not have a child protagonist. Some do, yes, but not the majority.
The majority of victims in horror movies are teenagers and adults. From the OP's example: "Eg. The Exorcist and The Omen seem to be about children, but in each case there is a much older force at work. There are horror films involving children, but I strongly disagree they are in the majority of horror protagonists. Horror movies was very generalized term. I have changed it to ghost movies. I hope that fits better. Ankit In fact "horror" was much better.
What you could have changed would be "most especially the good ones" into just "many" which would remove the slightly subjective by-taste that the answerer is adressing. Show 1 more comment. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. They all cited the juxtaposition that children bring to horror as a reason to include kids in their stories. That contradictory nature is due to the purity and wonderment associated with children.
Kids are an easy tool to use to depict the ongoing battle of good vs. Children are especially effective here because their interactions with evil highlight idea of lost innocence, which is something every audience member can relate to. Here's a breakdown prominent examples of kids in horror content and why innocence lost is a scary thing to watch on screen. Some of horror's most prominent films feature a heavy focus on the juxtaposition between children and a powerful force of evil. Georgie and his brother's friends fighting Pennywise in IT , Danny narrowly escaping his murderous father in The Shining , Aidan coming in contact with Samara in The Ring, and a whole host of kids giving in to Bughuul in Sinister ; the list is nearly endless.
Each of these films focuses a kid or group of kids going up against something evil—sadly, that sometimes involves them losing.
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