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Evil Children in Film and Literature: Notes Toward a Genealogy

2011; Routledge; Volume: 22; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10436928.2011.572330

1545-5866

Karen J. Renner,

Crime and Detective Fiction Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments A special thanks to Tara Harney-Mahajan both for helping me to compile and edit this special issue and for offering her feedback on this introduction. Notes Numerous articles have been written about the major works in the genre, but I've not yet discovered a book-length study on specifically evil children. Some noteworthy single-author studies that contain important discussions include Sabine Büssing's Aliens in the Home: The Child in Horror Fiction (1987 Büssing , Sabine. Aliens in the Home: The Child in Horror Fiction . Contributions to the Study of Childhood and Youth. Vol. 4 . New York : Greenwood P , 1987 . Print . [Google Scholar]), Ellen Pifer's Demon or Doll: Images of the Child in Contemporary Writing and Culture (2000 Pifer , Ellen. Demon or Doll: Images of the Child in Contemporary Writing and Culture . Charlottesville : UP of Virginia , 2000 . Print . [Google Scholar]), and Lynn Schofield Clark's From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural (2003 Clark , Lynn Schofield. From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural . New York : Oxford UP , 2003 . [Google Scholar]), but as their titles suggest, these authors examine child as both demon and doll, angel and alien. Barbara Creed's The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (1993 Creed , Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis . New York : Routledge , 1993. [Google Scholar]) also focuses on other matters than evil children, as the title suggests, but her book does examine several important films in the genre, including Alien (a film about monstrous births if there ever was one), The Exorcist (1973), The Brood (1979), and Carrie (1974). Evil children also are discussed at some length throughout the introduction of David J. Hogan's Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film (1986 Hogan , David J. Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film . Jefferson , NC : McFarland , 1986 . [Google Scholar]) and within his chapter entitled "Turgid Teens" (pp. 122–37); in a chapter entitled "It's Alive, I'm Afraid" in David J. Skal's The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (1993 Skal , David J. The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror . New York : Norton , 1993 . Print . [Google Scholar]) (pp. 287–306); and in William Paul's Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy (1994 Paul , William. Laughing Screaming: Modern Hollywood Horror and Comedy . New York : Columbia UP , 1994 . Print . [Google Scholar]) (pp. 255–380). Various edited collections, such as Gary Westfahl and George Slusser's Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (1999 Westfahl , Gary , and George Slusser , Eds. Nursery Realms: Children in the Worlds of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror . Athens : U of Georgia P , 1999 . Print . [Google Scholar]) and Steven Bruhm and Natasha Hurley's Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children (2004 Bruhm , Steven , and Natasha Hurley , eds. Curiouser: On the Queerness of Children . Minneapolis : U of Minnesota P , 2004 . Print . [Google Scholar]), contain relevant work as well. In 1874, for example, Jesse Pomeroy was convicted of killing a ten-year-old girl and four-year-old boy; he was 14 at the time of the murders. For discussion of British child murderers, see Loretta Loach's The Devil's Children. Bixby's short story became a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone; Golding's novel led to a 1963 movie; John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos inspired the 1960 film Village of the Damned and a 1963 sequel Children of the Damned; and stage and screen versions of The Bad Seed appeared in 1954 and 1956, respectively, and the latter was nominated for four Academy Awards. All of these would be revisited again in later years as well: "It's a Good Life" resurfaced in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and a sequel entitled "It's Still a Good Life" was included in the first season of a new Twilight Zone series (2002–2003); a made-for-television version of The Bad Seed starring Lynn Redgrave and David Carradine aired in 1985; and a second rendition of Village of the Damned, starring Christopher Reeve and Kristie Alley, hit theaters in 1995. That all of these texts have seen multiple film adaptations suggests that these narratives—and the evil children they involve—struck a resounding chord that has reverberated across time. While Rosemary's Baby was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Ruth Gordon received an Oscar for her supporting role as Minnie Castevet, The Exorcist easily surpassed that success with eight nominations and two Academy Awards. I have yet to view it for myself, but the description on Netflix, which remarks that Seytan's "highlights include the green-vomit scene, which has been transformed to a mustard-spitting sequence, and a demonic voice that sounds more like a drunken pirate than Satan," suggests that this film was hardly a flattering homage. The book is out of print and hard to find, but the cover proclaims that the story is about "a child accursed" who summons the protagonist to "a house of terror—and an appointment with death!" In the 1980s, Koontz penned Twilight (1984), later re-released as The Servants of Twilight (1990) and made into a film the next year. The novel and film portray a child suspected of being the antichrist, a suspicion that is never fully allayed. Hoppenstand specifically credits Rosemary's Baby, The Other, and The Exorcist for this shift. Featuring children who are both victims of and portals for evil, Saul's almost annual contributions during this period include Suffer the Children (1977), Punish the Sinners (1978), Cry for the Strangers (1979), Comes the Blind Fury (1980), When the Wind Blows (1981), The God Project (1982), Nathaniel (1984), Brainchild (1985), The Unwanted (1987), and Second Child (1990). The titles of Neiderman's novels—Brainchild (1981), Imp (1985), Teacher's Pet (1986), Surrogate Child (1988), Blood Child (1990), and Child's Play (1990)—proclaim his similar interests. Though Ruby Jean Jensen began her prolific writing career in the 1970s, her most notable works in this genre are Hear the Children Cry (1981), Such a Good Baby (1982), Best Friends (1985), Jump Rope (1988), Vampire Child (1990), Lost and Found (1990), The Reckoning (1992), and The Living Evil (1993). Jensen is also responsible for contributions to the "evil doll" genre, which also became popular during this time and which bears an obvious connection to evil children. Jensen's Mama (1983), Annabelle (1987), Victoria (1990), and Baby Dolly (1991) likely inspired such films as Dolly Dearest (1992), Demonic Toys (1992), and, of course, a series of films featuring the most famous evil doll of all—Chucky. Since Child's Play appearance in 1988, four sequels have been produced, and a remake is scheduled to appear this year. See, for example, Errickson's entries entitled "Pin by Andrew Neiderman (1981): The Kids Want Something to Do," "Tricycle by Russell Rhodes (1983): Out of His Way, Mister, You Best Keep," "William W. Johnstone: The Paperback Covers," "Ruby Jean Jensen: The Paperback Covers," and "The Next by Bob Randall (1981): Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?" The URL for Errickson's blog is http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.com/. In one particularly memorable episode, "Scott Tenorman Must Die" (Season 5, Episode 4, 11 July 2001), Cartman takes revenge on the title character, who throughout the episode has humiliated him in various ways. Cartman ultimately wins the duel between them by killing Scott's parents and mixing their corpses in with a vat of chili, a portion of which he offers to Scott. When Scott begins to eat, Cartman asks, "Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott? I call it, 'Mr. and Mrs. Tenorman Chili.'" Scott paws through the bowl, only to find a finger with his mother's wedding ring still on it. Realizing what Cartman has done, Scott breaks down into hysterical tears, and Cartman begins licking the tears from Scott's face, exclaiming, "Oh, let me taste your tears, Scott. Mmm. Your tears are so yummy and sweet." Thanks to "Mister" Greg Semenza for pointing this out. See, for example, "Prodigy" (Season 3, Episode 13, 8 Jan. 2002), "Juvenile" (Season 4, Episode 9, 22 Nov. 2002), "Damaged" (Season 4, Episode 11, 10 Jan. 2003), "Soulless" (Season 4, Episode 25, 16 May 2003), "Mean" (Season 5, Episode 17, 24 Feb. 2004), "Sick" (Season 5, Episode 19, 30 Mar. 2004), "Conscience" (Season 6, Episode 6, 9 Nov. 2004), "Game" (Season 6, Episode 14, 8 Feb. 2005), "Web" (Season 7, Episode 21, 9 May 2006), and "Unorthodox" (Season 9, Episode 13, 15 Jan. 2008). The examples are endless. The first of the six Silent Hill games, which appeared in 1999, features "grey children," child-like monsters who carry small knives and attack the player's avatar, and one possible ending to the game involves a monstrous, demonic birth. American McGee's Alice transforms Lewis Carroll's character into a young girl wielding a butcher knife, whose apron is splattered with blood. The covers of F.E.A.R. (2005) and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (2009) display a creepy little girl with dark hair hanging in her face; this character, Alma, menaces players throughout the game. (F.E.A.R. 3 is scheduled to be released shortly.) In Bioshock (2007) and Bioshock II (2010), players must decide whether to "harvest" or rescue the Little Sisters they encounter, genetically altered little girls who have been trained to extract a valuable substance called ADAM from corpses and who are guarded by destructive Big Daddies, humans in armored diving suits. A third video game in the series is scheduled for 2012. A society of girls named the Red Crayon Aristocrats terrorizes players in Rule of Rose (2006), and in Limbo (2010), small shadowy children take inventive measures to try to kill the main character as he navigates through a series of dangerous and puzzling obstacles. Collins's trilogy consists of The Hunger Games (2008), Catching Fire (2009), and Mockingjay (2010). See also, for example, Lynn Reid Banks's Angela and Diabola (1997) and Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion (2002). Later in the novel, we discover that this is not the first example of Rhoda's capacity for murder. Not only did she push a puppy out her window when caring for it interfered with playtime, but she also shoved an elderly woman down the stairs in order to claim the opal pendant that the woman has promised her in her will. In The Omen, Damien's adopted father, Robert Thorn, is just about to kill his son, whom he knows to be the antichrist, but the sight of the boy squirming and begging for his life causes him to hesitate long enough for the police to shoot him before he can complete his mission to save the world. As a result, Damien continues his reign of terror for two more sequels, whereupon his daughter Delia takes over in Omen IV: The Awakening, and in 2006, Damien was resurrected for a remake and started all over again. One can only wish that Robert would have been more decisive. And at the end of the French film Them (2006), the female protagonist refuses to smash a boy's head with a rock, even though his gang has been terrorizing her and her husband for an entire night; in fact, she just witnessed this particular boy cause her husband's death. However, when the boy covers his face with his hands and exclaims, "Don't hit me! I didn't do anything! We just want to play," she drops the rock and instead tries to escape. She fails. Roper v. Simmons (2005) banned death sentences and Graham v. Florida (2010) life sentences for crimes committed by juveniles. Additional informationNotes on contributorsKaren J. RennerKaren J. Renner is a Visiting Instructor of American Literature at Northern Arizona University. An excerpted version of her dissertation, Perverse Subjects: Drunks, Gamblers, Prostitutes, and Murderers, recently appeared in Nineteenth-Century Literature, and she is revising Perverse Subjects for publication. In addition, she is working on a second book tentatively titled Bad Seeds and Injured Innocents: The Evil Child in the Contemporary Imagination.