Movies with children's Deaths

[TheUltimateDreamWarrior]

There was a movie that disturbed me when I was a child, called The Unborn 2 (1994), which featured infanticide. It really affected me as a child and sticks with me to this day. It's probably the reason I am scared of firearms. I watched that scene with my sister. We didn't watch the whole movie, only the scene in question in the maternity ward. I remember where I was when I watched that scene, in my parent's bedroom and my sister changed the channel, probably because she didn't want my parents catching us watching a horror movie. She did the same with The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), as well.

I don't know if it was based on a real-life case or not, but I could see something horrible like it happening in real-life. The sad truth is things like infanticide and the murder of children do happen in real-life. It's a touchy depraved subject, but one that needs to be commented on in horror films. Art imitates life, and it should, in my opinion, even if that truth is hard to deal with. I never finished the novel Pet Semetary, but I remember in the forward by Stephen King he mentions how they lived near a busy highway, where tanker trucks would pass through. Once his son was almost hit by a tanker truck and that incident had Stephen King wondering what if he hadn't reached his son in time.

Horror movies reflect our mortality and the horrors that are all around us, so for a horror movie to show that kind of menace is bold, but probably not a film I could stomach watching again. Gage's death in Pet Semetary was definitely traumatizing but it was realistic and that's what I love about Stephen King, is his ability to create genuinely funny moments and genuinely scary moments.

[TheUltimateDreamWarrior]

Originally Posted by DarkGlobe

Don't see it mentioned but in Dawn of the Dead 2 kids are killed. Ok, Zombie kids, but still kids. Struck me when I saw it how unusual it is for kids to be killed in movies...unless they're teenagers of course, I mean, killing them is a staple of the horror genre!

George Romero did make mention of it in the commentary. You don't actually see the zombie kids get killed by Peter Washington (Ken Foree). George cuts away, quickly.

Yes, the mortality rate of teenagers in horror films is indeed a staple. Night of the Demons (1988) comes to mind, not the remake I only sat through five minutes of or the sequel with that awkward kissing scene or the scene where the nun's head grows back after being cut off.

[diezman]

Salem's Lot - The Glick brothers

Funny Games - the couple's son

[Jmarie]

One child's death I don't think I see mentioned here is Karen Cooper's in Night of the Living Dead. She dies and becomes a zombie. Also, we see her zombie form get shot in the remake.

Then, in the Dawn of the Dead remake, we see that the little girl, Vivian, has become a zombie. In addition, there's the zombie baby.

Other child deaths I don't think anyone's mentioned yet are -

- Robin (the little girl in Prom Night who is scared so bad by an older group of kids that she falls out a window - prompting her twin brother to go on a killing spree 10 years later)

- The children in Village of the Damned (both versions have them blown up by a bomb) and the original's sequel, Children of the Damned. Granted these children were aliens and had killed people, but in the sequel, they aren't completely evil.

- Ralphie Glick (from Salem's Lot) is the vampire Barlow's first victim (and first turned) and Ralphie goes on to kill and turn his brother, Danny. (If you think about it, King's books and movies include a lot of children dying or going through terrible things...

- It
- Silver Bullet (the kid flying his kite)

- Newt (from Aliens) is found dead in the very beginning of Alien 3 and she is autopsied.

- Eddie in The Blob remake

[The Shroud]

I agree with the idea that this is not done much because it would be "going too far", but I think there is another big reason. The kids dying aren't really dying. In other words, they are played by actors and...basically,.. if you want to show a little kid getting killed in a movie, you've got to get an actual little kid to act out the scene, get fake stabbed, fake cut-to-pieces, covered in fake blood, etc. and they may or may not be really mature enough to handle that.

-SPOILER- [recent IT movie] -- (highlight invisible/white text below...or if there is an actual spoiler tag I just don't see...please show me where/how to use it)-

Of course, if you've seen the recent adaptation of Stephen King's "It", Bill's little brother actually does act out some -him getting killed and maimed- scenes so...He does a great and very realistic job, but who knows what it might to do a small child psychologically to have the idea of having you're arm ripped off introduced to his field of possible things that could happen. Truth be told, though, I was hoping that they would show it this time, since they didn't show it in the made-for-tv movie version.


I'm not sure this is actually true or not, but I did hear once, that the little girl in the later Halloween movies (parts 4 and 5) who started out in the movies at maybe the age of 6 was so messed up by being in those movies that she started seeing, Michael Myers, everywhere and eventually was so freaked out that she locked herself in her home. She wasn't killed in the movies, but she was sure around some gruesome stuff in those films.

Heck, even that one filmmaker contest show that they had on tv a while back (don't remember the name, but Carrie Fisher was one of the judges) had this one guy who filmed this short film for the contest and he used identical twin boys to play one character. The character dies (or is already dead) in the film, and he had one of them lie in a coffin in one scene. The kid who was supposed to do it was terrified of lying in the coffin and I think they had to promise him something to finally get him to do it.