The 5 (Unintentionally) Freakiest Kids In Movies

Child actors freak the hell out of me, Pascal. Kids in real life are fine, but when they are played by some precocious little creature, they terrify me. They seem to be adults in the bodies of children, which makes them really unnerving. Some of these performances are creepy because they are meant to be, some are because the actor playing them is creepy. The following are the five creepiest kids in all movies, ever.

5. The kid from…  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [2005] (played by Freddie Highmore)

 This movie wasn’t great, and it was pretty unnecessary; I also didn’t like the fact that all the kids seemed to be alive at the end; their implied death in the Gene Wilder one made it a little bit more sinister. Johnny Depp wasn’t very good in it either, his Michael Jackson impersonation wasn’t enough to sustain a whole movie, especially when he was opposite this little creeper. It was certainly the time when most people I knew thought that it was the last time they would watch a Tim Burton Movie, and the rest made the same decision after that Sweeney Todd movie. Personally, I’d seen Planet of the Apes on a plane trip, so I was more wary. Anyway, the kid, playing Charlie Bucket, reminds of that creature in the bar in Star wars. You decide.

He has a very weird shaped head and talks throughout the movie with a strange, gravely voice. He has become something of a sex symbol (according to my cousin) now that he is an adult teenager, so something must have changed quite drastically between his being a kid and being an adult. Either that, or all girls and gay men are stupid. Again, you decide.

4. The kid from… Shane [1953] (played by Brandon De Wilde)

I watched Shane as a six year old, and when I was saddened by the end, my dad told me that Shane would return some day to see this kid. This is a complete lie, akin to Old Yeller being alive and set free, but I thank him for preventing me any stress. By all accounts I was a tightly wound-up child. Anyway, there was no way that Shane would return, because the kid is irritating beyond belief. He’s weird-looking, dopey, and doesn’t seem to understand what’s going on. His haircut makes him look like a Benedictine Monk, and his teeth are so gigantic even a Catholic Priest would struggle to find him attractive. Here he is:

the only picture I could find of him not chewing straw

I don’t see what Shane sees in him. Still, it’s a great movie, and I’ve heard there’s an alternative ending where the kid dies, I don’t believe it, but I wanna. [N.B. Looking this up, I have found that this kid died aged only 30 in real life, I kinda feel bad now.]

3. The kid from … The Innocents [1961] 
(Played by Martin Stephens)

 A classic here, where the woman goes to look after a couple of freaky kids who may or may not be possessed by the ghosts of the owners of the estate(or something, I watched it a long time ago). They live in a huge, haunted mansion, and talk to each other as a crotchety couple in their sixties would. We’re not supposed to know whether they are ‘haunted’ or just a woman struggling to cope with weird kids. The girl child is pretty creepy, but the bloke child is very creepy and very convincing.

even scarier than the stereotypical Spaniard behind him  

The conclusion hints that even the lady has fallen for it, but this may be a sign of her growing instability. I’ve done that without any overt spoilers, not bad huh? Oh, this wold be higher, because he is a freaky little fella, but he’s supposed to be, so he stays at number three.

2. The kid from… The Ring (U.S. Version) [2002] (played by David Dorfman)

 The character Naomi Watts plays sole reason to live seems to be her child. She watches the cursed video, and seems resigned to her own death, but when her child watches it, she really races forward to find a solution to keep her kid alive. Did I mention that her kid looks like this? 

Positively ghoulish.

He talks in a freaky, oddly grown-up voice too, and has a habit of turning up right behind you. He might even be behind you right now! But he loses points because he is meant to be a bit freaky to everyone but his parents. I’m glad he didn’t die though, he’s scary enough alive, imagine how bad he would be as a ghost. As it is, he lived, he’ll just be traumatised for the rest of his life from seeing a video that killed his dad, and that’s fine by me.

1. The kid from… The Gameplan [2007]
 (played by Madison Pettis)

  The only movie I haven't seen on this list, but from what I have seen, she is far and away the scariest child actor ever. This movie seemed to pass by unheralded (at least where I was living at the time) and I’ve never heard it mentioned, but I do remember being freaked out first by her performance in the trailer, and then in an an interview with her and the Rock. Try to watch this without mentally referring to her as a 'little urchin'…

Click here for link

In case you can't watch this, it's the Rock discussing a movie with that Peurto Rican woman from Scrubs after a shrinking accident. Have you ever seen a kid so precocious? She’s eight, how does she even have hair that thick / long? I think it may just be an adult dwarf instead. The story of the movie, from what I understand, is that the ‘kid’ comes along to live with the Rock, and they bond. She eventually teaches him valuable lessons about morality and maturity. I’m sure by the end of it, they want - instead of have - to live together, and she helps him to sort out whatever personal problems he may have had, even winning his important Gridiron match again/for the first time [delete as applicable]. I’m sure it was heart-warming for most, but I would rather drink poison than see it. I don’t think that the movie was supposed to be a horror, but if that thing knocked on my door wanting to stay, and claiming that I had helped give her life, I’d fling myself off a bridge.

Oh, and merry Christmas.

P.S. If anyone is interested in how I would rank the movies themselves, that would go, in order, 4, 3, 2, 5, 1. Some others weren’t considered, the kids from Mrs Doubtfire were ignored because they were irritating rather than freaky., and the kid from the Shining did a really convincing job playing a child. He was a particularly gifted one, but he still acted and talked like a kid, so that’s fine. I also don’t like Dakota Fanning, but I couldn’t think of anything that she’s been in that really freaked me out. More from me, if I haven’t been arrested for looking up child actors, later….