Horror Movies Where Even The Kids Weren't Safe

The horror genre is predicated on pushing boundaries and shocking the viewer. In most other films, you can more or less depend on a happy ending, even if it's bittersweet or complicated. But in horror, all bets are off and no one is safe.

It's all too common for horror films to kill off even the most likable of characters and in the most gnarly fashion possible. Even children might be fair game for punishment. Not only that, but oftentimes, a child character can receive the worst fate of all, often resulting in some truly twisted moments.

Whether it be a grizzly death, physical mutilation, mental torture, or death via killer clown, just because you're below the legal drinking age, it doesn't mean you're safe. So grab your closest blunt object and don't forget to check the children, because these are some horror movies where even the kids aren't safe.

While far from the most subtle of horror franchises, one cannot deny the effective nature of the "Final Destination" films. Each entry follows a cast of victims who, due to some inexplicable precognition, avoid a tragedy that was set to kill them, only for fatally bad luck to pick them off one by one.

For the most part, kids and young teenagers have usually been spared a gruesome fate throughout the series. The exception is "Final Destination 2," which sees the character Tim Carpenter (James Kirk) meet a particularly sickening end. As one of the survivors of an earlier tragedy, Tim has been marked by Death itself to die as he was intended to.

Tim meets his end partway through the film when, upon leaving a medical complex with his mother, he sees a flock of pigeons. Looking to stir them up, Tim runs into them, causing them to distract a construction worker who accidentally releases a pane of glass. The pane falls and crushes poor Tim into fruit jam in mere seconds, much to the shock and horror of his mother.

In a vast sea of evil clown horror films, "Clown" definitely stands out from the rest of the crowd, as its body horror with an added dose of white greasepaint delivers a unique onscreen monster. While cleaning out an old house he'll be selling, husband and father Kent McCoy (Andy Powers) discovers an old vintage clown suit in the basement. With the clown for his son Jack's birthday AWOL, Kent opts to slip on the costume and entertain at the party. The next morning, Kent and his wife Meg (Laura Allen) discover that the suit, including the wig and rubber nose, refuse to come off. In pursuit of a solution, Kent discovers the horrific truth: The suit itself is actually the skin of an Icelandic demon creature known as the Clöyne.

It seems Kent's transformation can only be reversed by eating five children, something he's resistant to ... at first, anyway. As the film goes on, the Clöyne's influence takes hold and Kent sets off on a ravenous clown rampage. Not only does Kent devour his son's school bully but he even munches up two kids playing inside a Chuck E Cheese. Filled with ample body horror and child death, "Clown" stands as yet another reminder of just how terrifying clowns can be.

The plot to "Doctor Sleep," especially when you hear it for the first time, isn't quite what one would expect from a sequel to "The Shining." The film, set decades after the original, sees an adult Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) still coping with the trauma of the Overlook Hotel and its many ghosts. As Danny grapples with his demons — both literal and at the bottom of a bottle — a new threat emerges. We're introduced to a group of vampire-like humanoids known as the True Knot, who feast on children with the Shining ability.

In their introductory scene, we see a little girl lured in by the True Knot's leader, Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), before being claimed as yet another meal. But this is utterly tame compared to the fate of their next target, a young baseball player walking home alone after a game. After being lured into their van, the group pin him down at a construction site where they begin stabbing him to death. This releases his essence in the form of steam which the members of the True Knot begin sucking up with sinister satisfaction. Both of these deaths help to solidify the True Knot as a legitimate threat and enhance the film's sinister tone.

Long before Steven Spielberg was dazzling critics with "The Fabelmans," he was terrifying moviegoers with 1975's "Jaws," one of the original summer blockbusters. The film's presence in pop culture is so ubiquitous that generations have been unable go to the beach without thinking about it.

The film is set in the island town of Amity, a community with a thriving summer tourism season. All seems fine until a swimmer's remains wash up on shore, confirming the presence of a killer shark. Despite the warnings of police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus), the town's mayor (Murray Hamilton) foolishly keeps the beaches open. This leads to one of the most famous scenes in the movie, the death of a young boy named Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees).

Needless to say, Steven Spielberg knows what he's doing behind the camera, putting us right into the shark's point-of-view as it stalks its prey. Poor Alex's final moments are shown in their near-entirety as the shark approaches, eventually dragging him to his untimely doom. We're even treated to a brief but horrific moment of the shark mauling Alex as blood shoots up from the water. In a film filled to the brim with standout sequences, it's impressive that this one, even decades later, still sticks with people.

Oh, hello Stephen King. Nice to see you again. We've already mentioned King's willingness to kill his child characters in gruesome fashion, and nowhere is that more on display than in "IT." The immense novel has seen itself adapted both for television in the '90s and for theaters in the 2010s. Both versions saw the titular monster played to perfection, first by Tim Curry and later by Bill Skarsgård.

The story sees the small Maine town of Derry menaced by a sinister creature that often takes the shape of a circus clown named Pennywise. We meet the dancing clown when he introduces himself to Georgie (Tony Dakota), Bill Denbrough's (Jonathan Brandis) little brother. After enticing Georgie with the promise of carnival rides and snacks, Pennywise grabs him by the arm and bites the limb clean off. We're spared this horrific visual in the miniseries, though that didn't stop the 2017 version from showing it in all its glory.

Regardless of which adaptation you're watching, aside from Georgie, countless other children are threatened with an unfortunate end courtesy of Pennywise. Whether it's in the sewers, a house of mirrors, or under a bridge, Pennywise can appear just about anywhere he smells fear.

Hey, Stephen, leave them kids alone! Okay, we swear that this is the final time that Stephen King will be mentioned on this list, for real this time. "Maximum Overdrive" holds the interesting distinction of being directed by King himself, rather than an established filmmaker adapting his work. Per King's tongue-in-cheek message in the film's original theatrical trailer, "I just wanted someone to do Stephen King right."

The film follows a ragtag group dealing with a fleet of killer machines given sentience by the tail of a passing comet. This includes ATMs, soda machines, trucks, cars and even a steamroller, which leads us to the death scene we'll be discussing. While not the first time a child has met their end via vehicular manslaughter in a King project, it's most definitely the most gruesome.

During an insane montage of various machines going on a rampage, we are treated to a young boy being flattened by the aforementioned steamroller. While no actual gore is shown, the visual itself is shocking enough on its own that it leaves a major impact on the audience.

Michael Dougherty's "Trick 'r Treat" was actually delayed for up to two years before it saw a release in theaters and video-on-demand. The film tells the tale of four intertwined stories that all take place in the same town and on the same Halloween night.

"Trick 'r Treat" covers everything from zombified kids to sexy werewolves, from serial killers to the very spirit of Halloween itself. One of the commonalities among every story is an appearance from the film's mascot, a masked trick-or-treater named Sam, short for Samhain.

The other commonality is a surplus of on- and off-screen child death, resulting in many of the film's most disturbing moments. This includes a snide trick-or-treater being killed with poisoned candy before having his head turned into a jack o' lantern. There's also a group of young pranksters being left to be ripped apart by a group of zombified bus crash victims. On that note, there's also a flashback that sees a school bus full of developmentally challenged kids drive off of a cliff. Halloween as a holiday has always had an aura of danger to it, so it makes sense for the film to embrace that sinister vibe.

Robert Eggers is quickly establishing himself as one of the finest horror directors working today. What's so interesting about his most popular films is that they aren't overly horrific at first, seemingly beginning as subdued character dramas. This applies to both "The Lighthouse" and Egger's breakout film, "The Witch," both of which strive for total immersion.

In "The Witch," everything from the setting to the dialogue is a pitch perfect representation of the early 1600s. The film introduces a family consisting of William (Ralph Ineson) and his wife Katherine (Kate Dickie), their eldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor Joy), her brother Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), and two young twins, Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson).

Exiled from their previous home in a Puritan settlement, the family sets up near the woods, where they soon find themselves targeted by seemingly supernatural forces. The family's demise is set into motion when, after running into the woods, Caleb is apparently hexed by the witch seen lurking nearby. He returns, not only naked and disoriented, but ill as well, eventually going into convulsions before he dies in front of his family. Even the twins aren't safe, as later on it seems as though the twins may have met a similar end to their older brother, though their ultimate fate isn't explicitly shown.