THE CHILDLING.

A common theme of the horror genre is an evil child--whether that child is Satanic, a literal monster, or simply a sociopath--this "monstrous" child has been seen time and time again. Why is this? What about an evil child has made us create and indulge in this trope again and again?

The presumptions we hold as a society about children is that they're innocent. They are pure of heart, unscathed by the world, optimistic, and represent opportunity and possibility. Adults try to protect and nurture them at all costs--even if this child isn't their direct kin. This is a pretty universal belief held across cultures and time.

What makes the monstrous child such an enduring horror character is that their monstrosity is juxtaposed with the belief of their innocence. Children are inherently good, which makes the sight of an evil child particularly chilling. Could this happen to my child? Horror comes to us from inside the home rather than an external threat. The idea of a loved, trusted member of the family carrying out violence is unsettling, but the idea of this family member being the child is the worst of all: pure horror.

We see our first monstrous child appearance in The Bad Seed (1956), about a sociopathic, murderous little girl who kills fellow classmates and even adults without remorse. Interesting to note the casting decision of the monstrous child--Rhonda--as a blonde haired, blue eyed, cherubic little girl. She is the the physicalization of light, and with light comes purity--innocence. This wasn't an unintentional choice--director Mervyn LeRoy capitalized on the association with lightness as good, further making Rhonda's evil so horrifying.

Differing from the novel, Rhonda is killed by the film's conclusion, thanks to the Hays Code that governed Hollywood at the time. In the original story, the mother--learning of Rhonda's crimes, commits suicide after attempting to kill Rhonda with a lethal dose of sleeping pills. However, Rhonda survives and is free to kill again.

Rhonda is the first visual image of a monstrous child and sets the tone for the other stories to come. Another interesting note is that Rhonda's evil is shown as genetic--her birth mother being an evil sociopath as well. The parents' evil is frequently passed down to the monstrous child in these horror films--a further anxiety for adult viewers.

From this point forward, many other filmmakers followed suit by often characterizing their monstrous children as on the cusp of puberty (a particularly challenging and scary time for parents) as well as casting light-featured actors to play them. Take Drew Barrymore and MacCauley Culkin for example, both having embodied monstrous children roles themselves.

The monstrous child phenomenon also began at an interesting time in American history. The Youth movement of the 60's was beginning and the totalitarian rule of parents was coming to an end. The hippy movement, anti-war protests, second wave feminism, and civil rights movements were all happening around this time as well, as America progressed to an overall more liberated society. With this liberation came huge anxiety when it came to adults and youth--parents and people with power fearing they were losing control of the children of America. The start of this trope played on all the fear that Americans felt during this time period.

In Let the Right One In, we are presented with a different monstrous child narrative. Eli is a vampire trapped in the body of a dark-haired, 12-year-old. Eli's gender is ambiguous, though they present as female--as Eli tells our other character multiple times, "I am not a girl." Oskar is a pale, blonde-haired Swedish boy who is horrifically bullied at school. Early in the film we see an obsession with crime scenes and violence, already showing some "evil" characteristics in him. Eli and Oskar meet and become friends, Oskar at first unaware that Eli is a vampire. In the meantime, Eli relies on her adult male companion--hinted at being a pedophile, though never directly stated--to kill people in order to feed her blood-dependent body. She encourages Oskar to fight back against his assailants, which he does, and badly injures one of the bullies.

Although the children differ from each other physically--one light and one dark--both Oskar and Eli take on the role of the monstrous child; both inflicting horror, both hurting people with little remorse or thought beyond themselves. This film blurs the line of traditional roles of good and evil. Eli is manipulative and uses Oskar, and Oskar has massive suppressed rage and finally releases it. You sympathize with both characters throughout the duration of the film.

In the American remake, Eli and Oskar, now Abby and Owen, are similarly physically characterized, though Abby is the "light" and Owen is the "dark".

Though nearly a shot for shot remake of the original, the remake characterizes Abby as the definite monster. Her gender ambiguity isn't as tastefully played with as in the first, and the editing feels more Hollywood. Capitalizing on a time in the United States where vampire movies were all the rage, Let Me In, seems to take advantage of a cultural craze. As said so brilliantly by someone in class, Let Me In feels like "a vampire movie about two troubled kids." while Let the Right One In feels like "a movie about two troubled kids with vampires." Let Me In moves away from the monstrous child aspect, with the complexities of Abby and Owen's relationship feeling pale in comparison with the story of Abby being a vampire. Let the Right One In feels like a truly line-blurring tale of two young, troubled children who are trying to balance puberty with the ailments of being monstrous. The horror aspects--the blood and murders--come second to our feelings about Oskar and Eli. It often is done subtlety and tastefully, unlike some traditional horror we see.

Overall, both Let Me In and Let the Right One in help us diverge from our traditional trope and sophisticate the idea of the monstrous child. It isn't as black and white as we've seen in film before; no one is completely good, nor completely evil. And perhaps that's the most chilling message of all--we all have a little bit of monster within us.