Nothing is sweeter than the innocence of a child. The babbles of young babies, a kid's bright smile, or the laughter of children at play all can bring delight to people considering the circumstances. Yet, as with all things, children have a dark side too. Anyone who has had to babysit for a child knows how much of a pain in the ass they can be and how kids really do say the darkest things. So it makes sense in terms of inversion and subversion of standard thinking that children and horror make a lovely mix. Almost too lovely, it's starting to become a cliché of sorts. So, how can we go beyond the tropes and into some twisted content? Let's explore what makes kids terrifying, starting from the beginning.
For most of history, pregnancy and childbirth was a source of horror for women as much as a source of joy. It still is for some, while maternal death rates have dropped among most developed nations, there are still plenty of places where giving birth is a dangerous process. There is also the train of thought about in simple terms what pregnancy actually is: a parasite, wanted or unwanted, infesting your body and changing it to suit its needs until it comes out of you in a violent and bloody fashion. This idea was used to great affect in Ridley Scott's Alien with the “chest burster” scene which has been considered an allegory of childbirth itself. There is also in this time a fear that builds, especially for a first child, of how one can handle that sudden responsibility.
Outside of the intrinsic body horror aspects that the mother must deal with, both parents have to cope with the idea that now they have a small life that is completely dependent on them for everything for the next few years and will need to be taught up until it can leave home. That's a lot of responsibility for anyone to carry, and a lot of sacrifice in terms of time and money. Kids are expensive, especially when they are little and the idea of this is explored in a Crypt Tv short called “One Please” that can be found on Youtube. If you need inspiration for what horrors you can do with children, this is easily the best one I have seen on how much parents will give for their children, even if the cost seems too high to most people. As you can tell, you can get a lot of inspiration just on what parents are forced to do in the name of having children.
Along with themes of sacrifice, the easiest theme to find is innocence gone wrong. While we mostly think of innocence as a sweet thing, the idea of someone uncorrupted by the cruelty of this world and still enjoying life without a care, innocence also has a fraternal twin and its name is ignorance. If you are completely innocent as most young children are, you have no concept of what is wrong or right. You have to learn these differences, and in the process are likely to do some cruel things without realizing. What a child can get into their head can be dangerous if they don't realize the full consequences of their actions. Think right now of a little girl and her baby brother. Mom is in the other room, distracted for a bit by some task, let's say running the laundry and has told the girl to keep quiet as mommy has a headache and she doesn't want to hear any loud screaming or yelling. However, as the girl and her brother chase each other around the room, her brother trips and falls. He hits his head hard and starts to cry. The girl, not wanting to make mom even more upset, tries to calm him down before mother hears it, but he won't stop. She puts one hand over his mouth, another over his nose, determined to stop the noise. It's a few short minutes and he stops crying, but she keeps it over his mouth out of fear of her mother's wrath, not noticing he's going limp. The mother comes back into the room and doesn't know what she's looking at, but then it hits her. Her daughter is on top of her bluing son, covering his mouth and killing him. A tragedy caused by innocence. It's not a true story of course, but there are cases of young children accidentally killing themselves or their friends every year, mainly due to instances of guns left unattended and at easy reach for a kid to find. If they don't know what it is, it only takes a small pull of a trigger and pointing the gun at an unfortunate target to kill someone before you're even out of diapers.
One last topic is to consider not just the idea of children as villains, but as victims. Saving the kids or killing kids in stories does seem to be a common theme, much like small animals it gives you something to care for and empathize with and then have your heart broken if it dies. However, there is more than just that, especially if you look at something like IT from Steven King. King brilliantly portrays the kids as the only smart ones in town, and plenty of other shows, movies, and books have taken that. Think of every Goosebumps book you ever read as a kid, it was about children overcoming horrible creatures that seemed to be too powerful to handle. You have as many options with a child protagonist as an adult but with some restrictions that allow you to force you into really thinking about where to go with the character. For example, “where are their parents” always seems to me a fun joke when looking at bad child horror protagonists, because you as a writer should be smart enough to come up with a believable reason why their parents aren't there, or don't believe what the child is telling them. Sell to your readers why these kids are running around dealing with monsters or no one will believe it. Also keep in mind their limited travel range, as when I say kids, I do NOT mean teenagers. I mean at oldest 12 year olds who cannot drive, ride the school bus, and probably still think that boys/girls are gross. Make sure they have something spooky right there, the closer to home or school it is, the more likely it is that the readers will be on edge. The monster is at their doorstep, and their parents aren't listening, what do they do?
There are a lot of ways you can work with children and horror, and this is not even touching the creepy child stereotype. Got any fun ideas of what sort of child horror you'd like? I always love the child who doesn't realize what they just did is wrong, it leads to a sort of heartbreak as it really is no one's fault in terms of what happened. Mother or father could have paid better attention, but the kid could have also rushed past them. Let me know your favorite ideas below, I'd love to hear them.