Minor ThreatWhy are we so fascinated with horror movies about homicidal children?

The horror, I think, comes from the thought that something you love with all your heart and are completely responsible for is evil -- the discovery that you have nursed a snake at your bosom. And the awful question of whether or not you could kill, or even turn in to the police, your own child. If you watch the news (or even an episode of Dog the Bounty Hunter), quite a lot of people can't bring themselves to help authorities hold their child accountable for his or her misdeeds.

I suspect that's why most of these movies make the evil child one who's been adopted by the family -- it's a bit of a cheap cop-out, in that it puts distance in between the parent and the psychopath child and creates an easy excuse -- "clearly, this alien child, who is no part of me, had problems that are not my fault." While I think a movie that dealt intelligently with the horror of an evil biological child could be fascinating, it may be too off-putting for popular audiences.

-- joy_ryde
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When my mother had cable, I'd occasionally find her watching the Lifetime cable channel. All their movies seem to revolve around variations of one theme - the boyfriend/fiancé/husband who is secretly a wife-beater/rapist/child abuser/murderer. I hope Judith Light got counseling after playing those roles. Both homicidal child and husband movies serve as the dark side of chick flicks - domestic emo-porn.

On a broader note, you could throw in the "check for pods" science fiction from the 1950 as well. All answer the same question: what if the people you trust the most turn against you? The enemy within may be more unlikely than aliens or homicidal thugs, but but that enemy is also more familiar, and thus perhaps more threatening than the garden variety monster.

-- JonFrum
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