Buzz
When we think of children, our minds typically wander to images of joy, playgrounds, and the excitement of the first day of school...not shocking depictions of murder. However, there are always exceptions, especially within the world of fiction. Whether fighting for good or evil, these ten kids show that you don't need to be an adult to leave a bloody path behind.
Here are ten killer children from film and TV who certainly deserve a time out...or maybe several hundred!
WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
10. Brandon Breyer (Brightburn)
Brightburn (2019) is a horror film with a Superman twist, telling the story of young Brandon Breyer and his parents. Brandon seems like any other kid his age, except for the fact that his parents discovered him in a small alien spacecraft that crash-landed on their farm one night. Aside from that, he's an ordinary, well-adjusted preteen. That is, until puberty hits and everything begins to spiral out of control. (A common experience for many adolescents.)
As Brandon’s birthday draws near, he starts to manifest extraordinary abilities such as super-strength, flight, super-speed, and, of course, laser vision. With these new powers come significant attitude shifts and a growing thirst for bloodshed. Oh, and demon-like whispers in an unfamiliar language invade his sleep. No big deal.
As the story unfolds, Brandon becomes more violent and uncontrollable. He stalks, kills, maims, and tortures the inhabitants of his town. In one particularly gruesome scene, Brandon terrorizes his own uncle before gruesomely ending his life. This is a stark contrast to the usual superhero movies we’ve been overwhelmed with recently.
9. Charlotte (The 100)
Charlotte was a supporting character in the first season of the sci-fi series, The 100 (2014–2020). The show’s inaugural season primarily focused on a group of rebellious young adults forced to become the first humans to return to Earth after a nuclear apocalypse.
Charlotte was one of the 100 young offenders sent down to Earth from the Ark, a space station housing the last survivors of humanity. Tormented by nightmares of her parents’ execution by the Ark’s Chancellor, Charlotte first appears as a frightened, fragile girl. However, her story takes a tragic turn when she misinterprets advice from another character, Bellamy. Bellamy tells her to “slay [her] demons” while she’s awake to prevent them from tormenting her in her sleep.
Taking this advice literally, Charlotte ends up fatally stabbing the Chancellor’s delinquent son in the throat, believing this will stop her nightmares.
8. Hit-Girl (Kick-Ass)
Mindy McCready, better known as Hit-Girl, is a central character in the action-comedy superhero film Kick-Ass (2010). After her father is wrongfully imprisoned for a drug deal he didn’t commit and her mother later takes her own life, Mindy’s childhood is anything but easy. Once her father is released from prison, he trains her in martial arts and weaponry, and together, they form the crime-fighting duo Big-Daddy and Hit-Girl.
Hit-Girl is an exceptionally skilled fighter and a master of weapons such as guns, knives, spears, and explosives. Her talents are put on full display in a scene filmed from a partial first-person perspective, where Hit-Girl takes out an entire group of armed men trying to burn her father alive.
7. Ashley Oswalt (Sinister)
In the 2012 thriller Sinister, the plot centers on Ellison Oswalt, a crime writer who relocates his family to a house previously owned by a family who was brutally murdered. Ashley, his daughter, begins as an innocent, artistic child, but soon becomes terrified by ghostly children who appear after Ellison discovers a series of unsettling footage in the attic.
The footage reveals the tragic murders of the family that lived in the house, along with other families whose fates are tied to this sinister pattern. As Ellison investigates further, he uncovers crayon drawings inside the boxes of the reels, depicting each horrific murder. The sketches feature a shadowy figure known as Mr. Boogie, who ominously appears in each scene.
In a shocking twist at the film's climax, it's revealed that each family was killed by their own children, under the influence of Baguul, a malevolent ancient god who feeds on their souls. Ellison uncovers this too late and realizes he's been poisoned by his daughter. Ashley then records herself killing her entire family with an axe, using their blood to cover the walls in a macabre display.
6. Number Five Hargreeves (The Umbrella Academy)
Five Hargreeves is a central figure in the Netflix series 'The Umbrella Academy,' which is based on a comic book. The show centers on a group of estranged siblings, each possessing unique superpowers, who are brought together after the passing of their cruel adoptive father.
Despite appearing to be 13 years old, Five is actually a 58-year-old assassin trapped in the body of a child. His first failed attempt at time travel left him stranded in a post-apocalyptic future for decades. Eventually, he was recruited by a secretive group controlling time, where he was trained to become a deadly assassin, rising to prominence among his peers. Later, Five deserted the organization and tried time travel again, aiming to prevent the impending apocalypse, but a crucial error sent him back to his 13-year-old form.
This doesn't stop Five from being one of the show's most merciless characters. Throughout the series, he kills many adversaries with his bare hands, casually gouging out eyes and snapping necks. He has a tendency to go on violent rampages, one of which is especially memorable in the second season when he joyfully slaughters a group of time-traveling executives with an ax.
5. Lilith (Supernatural)
In season three of 'Supernatural,' the demon Lilith briefly inhabits a young girl, holding her entire family hostage. During this time, the girl (played by Sierra McCormick) forces her parents and grandfather to celebrate her birthday daily, with cake for dinner each night. She also murders the family pet, kills a babysitter, and ultimately snaps her grandfather's neck.
Her brief reign of terror ended when she abandoned the young host for another. However, the same version of the character resurfaced as a hallucination in a later season, where she terrorized and mocked one of the show's protagonists while he suffered a paranormal-induced heart attack.
4. Eleven (Stranger Things)
Another number-themed murderous child from Netflix's roster is Eleven, a central character from the popular series 'Stranger Things' (2016 – ). Eleven, or El as she’s often called, was held captive by a mysterious figure known as 'Papa,' who conducted experiments on her as a child. These experiments gave her telekinetic and telepathic abilities, powers that often cause her nose (and occasionally her ears) to bleed when she uses them.
Although Eleven is generally kind-hearted and a big fan of waffles, her psionic powers have resulted in numerous deaths. She has killed guards who tried to imprison her and was also responsible for defeating the Demogorgon, the main antagonist of the first season. One of her most notable feats involved causing an entire room of government agents (referred to as 'bad men') to suffer fatal hemorrhages through sheer mental force. She has also used her abilities to flip a moving van several feet into the air while escaping from an attempted capture with her friends.
3. Lizzie Samuels (The Walking Dead)
In the fourth season of AMC's 'The Walking Dead' (2010–2022), Lizzie is introduced as a deeply troubled young girl who struggles to accept the reality of zombies, or 'walkers.' She often fails to see them as a danger, referring to them as her 'friends' and even naming them. Lizzie would try to engage with them as if they were playmates, becoming upset whenever they had to be killed.
Lizzie’s distorted view of reality reached a tragic climax when she tried to prove that walkers were harmless. In her attempt, she stabbed her younger sister Mika to death, insisting they should wait for her to reanimate, claiming she would no longer pose a threat. Lizzie would have done the same to the infant Judith if not for the intervention of two adults.
2. Village of the Damned (1960)
Our next entry is not a single child, but a group of them. In this 1960s black-and-white classic, the children are linked by telepathy, making them seem like one collective entity. Based on the novel 'The Midwich Cuckoos,' the film tells the story of a group of strange alien children who were mysteriously conceived under unexplained circumstances.
These children, with their unusual eyes and platinum-blonde hair, rapidly mature at an abnormal pace, exhibiting telepathic abilities. By age three, they resemble nine or ten-year-olds in appearance. They are not only remarkably intelligent but also possess a chilling and unfriendly demeanor, which causes the local townspeople to grow resentful of them.
The children also commit numerous violent acts, including forcing one of their mothers to dip her hand in boiling water as punishment. They are also responsible for a man’s death, orchestrating a car crash and later coercing his brother to take his own life with a gunshot to the head.
1. Janice (Annabelle: Creation)
Janice is a central character in the 2017 film 'Annabelle: Creation,' the second installment in the 'Annabelle' trilogy. After suffering from polio, Janice uses a wheelchair and begins the movie as a compassionate girl who is deeply devoted to her best friend, Linda. Janice and Linda live in an orphanage run by Sister Charlotte. When their previous orphanage is shut down, Sister Charlotte and her six girls are taken in by a dollmaker named Mr. Mullins.
It becomes clear that the house and Mr. Mullins himself are hiding dark, deadly secrets. Soon after arriving, Janice becomes the target of a demon connected to the Annabelle doll, and she is possessed. As a result, her entire demeanor changes, and she miraculously regains the ability to walk. The demon now controlling her goes on to kill Mr. Mullins and later tortures and crucifies his wife, who is bedridden.
By the end of the movie, it is revealed that Janice’s horrifying actions don’t stop in her youth. Now as a teenager and going by the name Annabelle Higgins, she joins a satanic cult. She later returns to the home of her adoptive parents, unaware of her gruesome past, and murders them in cold blood.
