Connecticut parent-shoppers (Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard) pick 9-year-old Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) — who paints pretty pictures, dresses like Little Bo Peep (meets Wednesday Addams) and has mysterious ribbons around her neck and wrists that can’t be removed under any circumstances — as a replacement kid for their miscarried one in “Orphan.” (Read The Post’s review of “Orphan” here
).
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He may look innocent, but the mind of 12-year-old Henry (Macaulay Culkin) belongs to that of a sociopath in “The Good Son” — he drowned his 3-year-old brother in the bathtub and attempts to kill his whole family, including his (actually) good cousin Mark (Elijah Wood).
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We’re not sure which is more creepy: ESP child Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd), known for his possessed chanting of “Redrum” (Murder spelled backwards), or the Grady twins that haunt the Overlook Hotel in “The Shining.”
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Linda Blair’s portrayal of “The Exorcist’s” demonic, head-spinning twelve-year-old Regan MacNeil was so terrifying that the actress had trouble landing roles after the movie.
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The pigtail-wearing and proper Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) didn’t like losing a penmanship medal to her schoolmate – so she killed him. “The Bad Seed” also killed her neighbor and burned her school janitor alive.
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The cultish “Children of the Corn” believe that the only way to ensure a successful corn harvest is to murder all adults who pass through town.
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Both Harvey Stephens (in 1976) and Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (in 2006) kill as the long-prophesied Antichrist Damien Thorn in “The Omen.”
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Despite their good intentions, both ghost-seer Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) and ghost Kyra Collins (Mischa Barton) prove to be the scarier than any of the many demons that inhabit “The Sixth Sense.”
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Manipulative child vampire Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) hides the corpse of a woman she so longs to grow into (and can’t accept that she never will) among her doll collection in “Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles.”
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Loner Aidan Keller (David Dorfman) shares a bond with the evil spirit of 12-year-old Samara (Daveigh Chase), who uses her power of “projected thermography” (burning images into the mind of other living beings via recording media) on the boy in “The Ring.”
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Little Emily (Dakota Fanning), who’s split personality prevents her from identifying right from wrong, controls the puppet strings in “Hide and Seek.”
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HIV-positive teen Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) smooth talks virgins into having unprotected sex with him in “Kids.”
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Medium Carol Anne Freeling’s (Heather O’Rourke) eerie delivery of warning line, “They’re here,” in “Poltergeist” gave the phrase a new meaning in everyday vernacular.
Everett Collection
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After a voyeuristic observation, 13-year-old Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) jumps to a rash conclusion, setting a fate-altering plan in motion for older sister (Keira Knightley) and her lover (James McAvoy).
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Everyone must play nice with 6-year-old mind reader Anthony Fremont (Billy Mumy) in “The Twilight Zone” — when angered, he can banish people away to a cornfields or morph them into a walking zombies with one, simple thought.
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When Gage Creed (Miko Hughes) is run over by a truck, his father resurrects him by burying him in an ancient burial ground in “Pet Sematary.” Gage returns as an adult-speaking, demonic version of his former self and kills his mother.
