One of the foundations for horror is helplessness. Murderous monsters and otherworldly threats are imposing enough, but the terror amplifies when you can’t stop them. That’s why so many horror games position players as victims. When you can’t rely on the usual offensive approach, you must find creative ways to escape before your assailant closes in. Not only does that approach breed suspense, but it leads to greater challenges. Sometimes, however, the shoe should be on the other foot.

A few games flip the horror script by letting you play as the killer. Controlling a masked maniac or mythical monster, you hunt down innocent civilians to satiate your bloodlust. NPCs and even other players exist solely as your victims, and you’re nigh impervious to their pitiful attacks. While this premise undermines the difficulty, it compensates through the sheer thrill of a power fantasy. It also offers a fresh perspective on cliched horror scenarios. These perks make it worth seeing things from the other side—as demented as it is.

Related: 10 Horror Video Games You Won’t Want to Play in the Dark

10 Texas Chainsaw Massacre

How fitting that this early example stems from one of the most notorious horror flicks ever made. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre focuses on an unsuspecting group of friends who stumble into a macabre ordeal. A simple pit stop brings them face-to-face with a family of cannibals. The most imposing of these killers is Leatherface, a silent giant with a chainsaw and a mask made of human skin. You’d think such grisly visuals would be too much for an old Atari game, but you’d be wrong.

The Texas Chainsaw tie-in has you play as Leatherface during a killing spree. Wielding his trusty chainsaw, he chases civilians around the screen. Colliding with these victims slices their heads off, leaving them in a mass of pixelated blood. That gameplay loop sounds simple, and that’s because it is. You control this iconic serial killer and do what he does best. The game gives you exactly what you ask for.

If old-school Atari is not your thing, the 2023 version of the game comes with more killers and better graphics.^[1]

9 The Happyhills Homicide

In the same retro vein is a pixelated indie title. The Happyhills Homicide introduces John Wade. This unfortunate school janitor’s grotesque appearance earns brutal treatment from both students and staff. After a fire leaves him scarred and homeless, this poor soul takes revenge on those who wronged him. Needless to say, this game makes you root for the killer. It’s not just a mindless massacre, though.

The game is a side-scrolling puzzle title. You must sneak into your victims’ homes to catch them unawares. This process involves studying the layout, using tools lying around, and bypassing obstacles. This preparation makes success all the more rewarding. Not to mention, the harebrained schemes have a sadistic perk: killing your targets in wonderfully elaborate ways. The game prioritizes patience and ingenuity with its sadistic showmanship. Revenge is a dish best served cold.^[2]

8 Dead by Daylight

This title sees you target other players. Dead by Daylight is a multiplayer adventure whose premise stems from horror archetypes. Each match sees several players control the Survivors. Working together, they must escape the arena that they’re trapped in. This process involves gathering materials, crafting tools, and fixing generators to power up the exit gates. The catch is the time crunch.

The final player controls the Killer. This masked maniac hunts down the Survivors and impales them on hooks. This unholy act sacrifices them to a mysterious being known as the “Entity.” If he accomplishes this terrible tribute before his victims escape, then he wins. Essentially, each side has to race against time to outfox the other. The gameplay loop is basic, but so are most horror scenarios.^[3]

7 Predator: Hunting Grounds

The formula of Dead by Daylight naturally spawned a few imitators. Predator: Hunting Grounds is one of them, but it’s a fitting match. The Predator movies are about extraterrestrial hunters systematically slaughtering characters in densely confusing settings. That premise lends itself naturally to this formula.

As before, players compete in a horrific game of cat and mouse. Four of them control elite spec ops soldiers. Together, they must complete military missions like recon or eliminating targets. Meanwhile, the remaining player goes after them as the Predator. Either side can kill the other, but the latter obviously has the advantage, thanks to alien stealth tech and durable biology. It can easily catch its quarry unawares like a superhuman assassin. The toughest troops look like lambs by comparison.^[4]

6 Friday the 13th

Another multiplayer movie tie-in uses Dead by Daylight as a template. Friday the 13th focuses on a masked murderer stalking a forest campground and offing the counselors. This survival title positions one player as Jason Voorhees, who proceeds to hunt down the others. His uncanny mobility and extrasensory abilities make him a skilled killer able to ward off any attack, but the others are far from defenseless.

The remaining players are camp counselors. Their in-house know-how can hinder Jason through careful planning. Specifically, they slow him down by setting traps or shooting projectiles. Those small delays buy enough time to either escape or last until the end of the session. Granted, the counselors can also kill him by replicating his childhood trauma involving his mother, but that feat is extremely difficult to pull off. Because of Jason’s otherwise invincible nature, most matches likely involve running for dear life.^[5]

5 Jaws Unleashed

It’s easy to see how Jaws made audiences afraid to enter the water. This film portrays a scenic island plagued by a massive shark. Its bloodthirsty nature is never satisfied, and its aquatic habitat makes it nearly impossible to see coming. Like the best horror monsters, this animal is truly overwhelming.

Jaws Unleashed shifts the perspective beneath the waves. Players control the enormous predator as it prowls the waters near Amity Island. Gameplay involves attacking swimmers, sinking boats, fending off hunters, and eating other animals. Along the way, you improve your stats and attacks to take on larger prey. That loop continues as the pitiful humans resort to increasingly drastic means to drive you out. Overcoming those attempts lets you secure your spot at the top of the food chain.^[6]

4 Vampyr

To be fair, this entry depends on your playstyle. Vampyr sees a blood-sucking plague ravage London in 1918. You play as a doctor trying to stop it. The twist is that you’re a vampire yourself, albeit of a higher tier. It’s here where the game’s choices come in.

The selfish path is easier, but it also leaves more bodies in its wake. As a doctor, you have a set number of patients. They may be innocent people, but a vampire simply sees them as a food source. Killing them and drinking their blood can satisfy your hunger. In fact, it’s practically required to level up your vampiric abilities. The downside is that it somewhat undermines the medical profession when your patients mysteriously die off. By the end, this doctor is a bigger menace than the plague.^[7]

3 Terminator: Resistance

The Terminator films are pillars of technological terror. They depict an apocalyptic future where machines reduce the planet to a nuclear wasteland and wage a ruthless war against the survivors. Terminator: Resistance positions you as one of those human survivors. You frequently fight the menacing mechs, and each encounter is a grueling struggle thanks to their impregnable armor and unparalleled precision. Fortunately, you can tip the odds in your favor.

The Infiltrator Mode DLC lets you become a Terminator. Specifically, you control an infiltrator unit to terminate a Resistance commander. Accomplishing this mission involves scouring the dilapidated Los Angeles streets and storming Tech-Com facilities. At the end of the day, though, you just mow down any humans foolish enough to stand in your way. That frightening efficiency makes you wonder how people can ever win out against robots.^[8]

2 Rebel without a Pulse

Zombies usually make convenient cannon fodder. Stubbs bucks that trend. The eponymous Rebel without a Pulse survives by killing humans. The goal of the game is to simply devour people’s brains. This cranial meal keeps the undead protagonist alive (so to speak). Granted, the humans don’t make this easy, as many of them are only too willing to blast Stubbs into oblivion. The zombie can defend himself with makeshift weapons and stolen vehicles, but there’s strength in numbers.

Stubbs can also infect his victims with the undead virus. Not only does this action turn them into zombies, but it makes them loyal to their deformed creator. Soon, Stubbs has a whole army of mindless followers. These legions are great for both combat and spreading the infection. The resulting snowball effect eventually topples the entire population. It’s no wonder why zombies are so good at the apocalypse.^[9]

1 Among Us

Among Us looks like the most innocent entry, but those looks lure you into a false sense of security. It’s yet another multiplayer title about a group of survivors in an enclosed environment. They must roam around this rundown base and keep it operational through teamwork. Of course, they also have a killer seeking to wipe them out. However, that familiar setup comes with a lethal caveat: The murderer is one of their own teammates.

Certain players are imposters. These guys resemble regular characters, but that’s how they get close enough to assassinate you. You must somehow discover who is genuine and who is a saboteur. Otherwise, your companions will gradually get knifed in the dark. It’s tough to rely on a team you can’t trust. On the upside, paranoia is a solid foundation for horror.^[10]

In the United States, Hurricane Harvey unleashed a series of the nation’s most devastating floods. 35,000 sought refuge in shelters as thousands of homes were submerged beneath ravaging floodwaters that covered up to 30 percent of Texas’s Harris County, home to 4.5 million people. As of August 30, 2017, 38 people were dead.^[1]

As horrific as this storm and its floods have been, the world has witnessed far worse deluges, some of which claimed victims numbering in the millions and property losses assessed at billions of dollars. As a result of some of these floods, hundreds of square miles of once-rich farmland were forever ruined, whole cities and villages were destroyed, and entire coastlines were reconfigured. These top ten killer floods are unlike any others, past or present.

10 North Sea Flood

Although the North Sea flood mostly struck elsewhere, it also affected the Irish Sea, off England’s west coast. In January 1953, rising waters sank the Princess Victoria, a passenger ferry whose captain dared to attempt a crossing of the Irish Sea, despite a gale warning. Although 133 of the ferry’s 179 passengers and crew members lost their lives, the Princess Victoria was only the first casualty of the cyclone that caused the massive flood.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, sea barriers had fallen into disrepair as a result of World War II, and early warning systems left much to be desired. In Great Britain, such systems were better, but the storm swept past the island during the night, when radios were silent and people were asleep.

The floods, their destruction, and their costs were tremendous. Hundreds of thousands of acres were submerged. Tens of thousands of properties were destroyed or damaged, and as many livestock were killed. Lives and vessels were lost at sea. Although many people were evacuated, 307 died in England, 1,836 met their deaths in the Netherlands, 17 died in Scotland, and 22 lost their lives in Belgium. Another 230 died at sea, including those aboard the Princess Victoria.

Although the disaster led to the adoption of improved sea defenses, warning systems, and flood management, the North Sea flood, having caught four nations by surprise, was one of the ten worst floods ever recorded.^[2]

9 1287 Floods

Twice in 1287, the southern coast of England was engulfed by floods. The first inundation occurred in February, as waters struck with such intensity that they altered the island’s coastline, leaving New Romney, once a seaside town, high and dry. In Hastings, the storm tumbled cliffs and half of the Norman castle into the sea, obstructed the harbor, and ended the town’s existence as a seaport. Farther down the coast, the island port of Old Winchelsea was destroyed.

In December, a storm, later called St. Lucia’s flood, surged into Holland, drowning 50,000 people. In east Anglia, 500 lives were lost. Another 180 people died in Hickling, Norfolk, but two canons who were resolute enough not to flee the flood managed to save horses and other belongings, which they took to their dormitory over the church’s vaulted crypt.^[3]

8 St. Felix’s Flood

Another of the world’s worst floods, known as the St. Felix Quade Saterdagh (“Bad Saturday”) Flood, occurred in 1530. The result of a storm surge, waters swept through the counties of Kent and Essex, England, on either side of the River Thames’s estuary on the night of a full Moon, during a spring tide, breaching many dikes. Because of gale winds, the flood hit the eastern side of the estuary harder than the islands in the North Sea. As a result, many people left the area for good, both because their lands were ruined and because they wanted to avoid paying “ruinous dike dues” to repair and maintain the sea barriers.^[4]

The flood also devastated other parts of Europe, especially Zeeland, a province in the Netherlands, large parts of which were altogether obliterated. The flood’s devastating effect was aided by Zeeland’s extraction of peat and by its poorly maintained dikes. Eighteen villages were flooded and destroyed. Although attempts were made to recover the Zuid-Beveland portion of Zeeland, the project proved impossible. Reimerswaal, Zeeland’s third-largest city, was completely destroyed. All told, St. Felix’s Flood was responsible for 100,000 deaths.

7 1935 Yangtze River Flood

Early 20th-century China suffered a decade of famine and social upheaval, and it also experienced one of the world’s worst floods. The 1935 Yangtze River Flood was the fifth-deadliest deluge in the planet’s history, causing 145,000 deaths. Survivors had to deal with displacement, injuries, property and job losses, and hunger. The flood wiped out lives, houses, businesses, farms, and crops.

The Yangtze River has caused 75 percent of China’s torrential inundations. Despite this record, people persist in living along its banks. The deluges may bring death, destruction, and misery, but, since 2000 BC, the river has been vital to commerce, transportation, and farming.^[5]

6 Banqiao Dam Flood

On August 8, 1975, the Ru River was rising fast. If the residents of Henan Province, China, couldn’t pile their sandbags on top of the Banqiao Dam high enough and fast enough, the torrential river would flood the region, endangering the lives of millions, destroying their property, and laying waste to much of the land.

For a moment, it seemed the workers were victorious; the flood appeared to be in retreat. A moment later, with a thunderous crash, 280,000 Olympic-size swimming pools’ worth of water shattered the dam, obliterating entire towns and killing 171,000 members of the local population. For 30 years, records about the cataclysmic event remained sealed. Only in 2005 did scholars began to examine them.

Completed in 1952 over the Huai River, the Banqiao Dam, like other barriers, was built despite hydrologist Chen Xing’s warning that too many dams and reservoirs could elevate Henan Province’s water table to disastrous levels. From the 1950s to the 1970s, hundreds of dams and 87,000 reservoirs were constructed across the country.

On the night of the Banqiao Dam flood, a typhoon encountered a cold front over Henan. Within 24 hours, rain fell so hard it killed birds in flight. In an effort to limit downstream floods, the dam’s sluice gates were only partly opened. When the storm knocked out communications, no one knew when to open the gates. When they were finally opened, it was too late: The water had risen faster than it could escape through the sluices. The dam crashed. A 50-kilometer-per-hour (31 mph) wall of water rushed toward the unprotected valley, obliterating villages and people alike in mere minutes.^[6]

5 1911 Yangtze River Flood

In September 1911, a Yangtze River flood affected four Chinese provinces within a 1,800-square-kilometer (700 mi²) area and destroyed the homes of 500,000 residents. 100,000 people drowned, and another 100,000 were murdered at the hands of “roving bands of starving marauders.”

The countryside was once a fertile, green region that provided food for many and in which two million people made their homes, but the flood transformed the land into an inland sea in which neither crops, cattle, nor human beings survived.

Within an hour of its onset, the devastating flood completely swamped the city of Suchow, drowning thousands of its residents. Robbers ransacked the American Baptist Chapel near Ch’uisan. Murdering its missionaries, the band left the chapel in ruins. The waters also flooded a cemetery, unearthing thousands of coffins, which floated down the river.^[7]

4 1938 Yellow River Flood

In 1938, during the conflict known in China as the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance (1937–1945), the Chinese Nationalist military had a mission: blow up the dikes on the Yellow River to prevent the advance of Japanese forces. As a result of the operation, the river swamped farmlands, displaced millions, and killed hundreds of thousands. The loss of the dike system also eliminated the region’s infrastructure for controlling the water, causing additional devastation throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s.^[8]

Although the military’s mission succeeded, preventing Japanese troops from capturing Zhengzou, the river flooded 54 square kilometers (21 mi²) of farmland and killed between 500,000 and 900,000 civilians as well as an unknown number of Japanese soldiers.

3 1887 Yellow River Flood

Like the Yangtze River, the Yellow River has long been susceptible to floods. The buildup of silt on the bottom of the river, its elevation, and heavy rains combine to make flooding likely, despite efforts to control the waterway.

In an attempt to prevent the river from destroying their lands and crops, farmers built dikes along either side. When rains were heavy enough, though, the river washed over the dikes, flooding the farms. Since the Yellow River originates in the mountains, whereas Henan Province is only about 180 meters (600 ft) above sea level, the flood was much more devastating than it would have been had the river not flowed down from high ground.

The worst instance of Yellow River flooding occurred in 1887, when it flooded dikes in the lowlands of Henan Province, inundating 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 mi²), wiping out 11 large towns and hundreds of settlements, leaving two million people homeless, and killing 900,000 others.

The dikes’ failures occurred near Zhengzhou, taking only an hour to form a body of water the size of Lake Ontario. City residents using rowboats sought to rescue neighbors, as many as 100 of whom perched on a single terrace, while others clung to straw barrows, stood atop rooftops, or hung onto tree branches. One desperate family set their baby adrift on top of a chest with food and a note bearing the child’s name, in hopes the infant would be rescued. This makeshift raft remained afloat long enough to accomplish its purpose, and the child was saved.

Government rescue operations persisted throughout the winter. When the water finally abated, the region resembled the Sahara Desert, large “dunes” of silt deposited by the flood replacing the rich fields that had once been there. Despite the perpetual dangers of the Yellow River’s floods, the farmers rebuilt the dikes and reclaimed their farmlands, willing to risk death and destruction because nearby volcanoes make Henan Province soils superior for agriculture.^[9]

2 Hanoi And Red River Delta Flood

The Red River Delta is watered by the Red River, which, in turn, is fed by three tributaries: the Da, Thao, and Lo Rivers, making Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi, like the surrounding area, subject to floods, some of which have been devastating.

The worst, to date, occurred in 1971, when, despite a dike system, upstream reservoirs, flood-diversion and retention areas, and other measures designed to protect the region against flooding, a deluge swept through the area, inundating four provinces and destroying $1 billion worth of property. According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Hanoi and Red River Flood was one of the greatest floods of the 20th century. It took the lives of 100,000 people and affected billions of others.^[10]

1 1931 Chinese Floods

The 1931 summer floods of the Yangtze River, which occurred during July and August, were the world’s worst killer floods to date. They affected one-fourth of China’s population at the time, or about 51 million people, 3.7 million of whom drowned or died of disease or starvation.

Asia’s longest river, the Yangtze measures 6,301 kilometers (3,915 mi). In the spring, the heavy snowfalls of the winter thawed, causing the Yangtze to rise, as did massive rainfall during July and August. One flood alone, on August 18, caused $2 billion in property damage and killed 145,000 people. The Yangtze River floods affected 10 provinces, devastated 186 counties and cities, affected 8.38 million acres of farmland, stunted rice production (which resulted in starvation), and spread such diseases as typhoid and dysentery.

Human error was also a cause of the floods. Excessive cultivation left too little vegetation to absorb rainfall, causing excess water to raise the levels of the region’s major rivers.^[11]

Gary Pullman, an instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, lives south of Area 51, which, according to his family and friends, explains “a lot.” His 2016 urban fantasy novel, A Whole World Full of Hurt, available on Amazon.com, was published by The Wild Rose Press.

When we think of kids, it often brings to mind images of laughter, playgrounds, and first days of school…not graphic scenes of murder. However, there are always exceptions, particularly in the realm of fiction. Whether they fight for the side of good or evil, these ten kids prove you don’t have to be an adult to leave a trail of bloody carnage.

Here are ten killer kids from film and TV who definitely deserve a time out or two or three…hundred!

CAUTION: Spoilers ahead!

Related: Top 10 Things Children Do That Are Considered Insane In Adults

10 Brandon Breyer (Brightburn)

Brightburn (2019) is a Superman-style horror film that follows the story of young Brandon Breyer and his parents. Brandon is like any other kid his age, except his parents found him in a small alien ship that crashed on their farm late one night. Besides that, he’s a totally average, well-adjusted preteen. That is until puberty hits, and everything falls apart. (A common experience for many adolescents.)

As Brandon’s birthday approaches, he begins to develop other-worldly powers, such as super-strength, flight, super-speed, and, yes, laser vision. These new powers also bring some major attitude changes and a taste for gore and violence. Oh yeah, and demon-like voices that whisper to him in an unknown language while he sleeps. No biggie.

As the film progresses, Brandon grows increasingly hostile and uncontrollable. He stalks, kills, maims, and tortures the residents of his hometown. In one particularly gory scene, Brandon even terrorizes his own uncle before graphically murdering him. A definite departure from the usual superhero flick we’ve been inundated with in recent years.^[1]

9 Charlotte (The 100)

Charlotte was a minor character who appeared early in the first season of the sci-fi drama series, The 100 (2014–2020). The show’s first season primarily focused on a group of delinquent young adults who are forced to become the first humans to return to Earth in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.

Charlotte was among the 100 juveniles sent down to Earth from the Ark (an orbiting space station that contains the last survivors of humanity). Haunted by nightmares of her parent’s execution by the Ark’s Chancellor, Charlotte initially appears as a scared and frail little girl. However, her story quickly takes a dark turn when she misinterprets advice that another character named Bellamy tries to give her. Bellamy tells her to “slay [her] demons” while she is awake so that they can’t get her in her sleep.

Charlotte takes this advice literally and fatally stabs the Chancellor’s delinquent son in the throat, hoping it will end her bad dreams.^[2]

8 Hit-Girl (Kick-Ass)

Mindy McCready, aka Hit-Girl, is the secondary main character in the comedy superhero flick Kick-Ass (2010). With her father being framed for a drug deal he didn’t take part in and her mother later committing suicide, Mindy’s early life was a rocky one. Upon his release from prison, Mindy’s father trains her from a young age in martial arts and weaponry skills. Together the two become a crime-fighting duo known as Big-Daddy and Hit-Girl.

Hit-Girl is a brutally efficient fighter and an expert in weapons like firearms, knives, spears, and explosives. Her fighting abilities are showcased in a partially first-person point-of-view scene where Hit-Girl single-handedly takes out an entire room of armed men attempting to light her father on fire. ^[3]

7 Ashley Oswalt (Sinister)

This 2012 horror film follows a true-crime writer named Ellison Oswalt, who moves into the house of a mysteriously murdered family with his wife, son, and daughter Ashley. Ashley starts as a sweet and creative little girl who is scared by the ghost children that begin to appear in the house shortly after Ellison finds reels of footage in the attic.

The footage depicts not only the murders of the family that once lived in his current house but also the murders of other unnamed families. Ellison begins to investigate the murders, finding drawings on the inside of each box of reels. The illustrations are in crayon and appear to be recreations of each murder, with an ominous figure named Mr. Boogie always standing close by.

At the film’s climax, it’s revealed that each family has been murdered by one of their own children. The children carry out the bloody act while under the influence of an ancient pagan deity named Baguul, who seeks to consume their souls. Ellison reaches this conclusion a little too late and soon realizes he’s been drugged by his daughter. Ashley then films herself murdering her entire family with an ax and proceeds to paint the walls with their blood.^[4]

6 Number Five Hargreeves (The Umbrella Academy)

Five Hargreeves is one of the main protagonists of the Netflix comic book-inspired series, The Umbrella Academy. The series follows a group of estranged super-powered siblings who are reunited after the death of their abusive adoptive father.

Five, though 13 years old on the outside, is actually a ruthless 58-year-old assassin on the inside. As a child, Five’s botched attempt at time travel stranded him for decades in a futuristic apocalypse. He was later recruited by a mysterious organization that governs the flow of time and then shaped into a lethal assassin who quickly rose to fame among his peers. Five eventually defected and again attempted time travel in order to stop the oncoming apocalypse. Unfortunately for him, he made a vital miscalculation and accidentally landed himself back in his 13-year-old body.

However, that doesn’t stop the now-pint-sized killer from being one of the most brutal characters in the show. Throughout the series, he kills many of his opponents with his bare hands, gouging out eyes and snapping necks with relative ease. He even has a habit of going on killing sprees when the occasion calls for it, the most graphic of which occurred in the second season where Five gleefully slaughtered a room of time-traveling executives with an ax.^[5]

5 Lilith (Supernatural)

During the third season of the CW drama Supernatural, the demon Lilith (a recurring character in the show) briefly possessed a little girl and held her entire family captive. During that time, the girl (portrayed by Sierra McCormick) forced her mother, father, and grandpa all to celebrate her birthday every day and eat cake for dinner every night. She also killed the family pet, murdered a babysitter, and later snapped her grandfather’s neck.

Her tiny reign of terror eventually came to an end when she deserted the young vessel for a different one. However, that version of the character appeared again a season later as a hallucination. She terrorized and taunted one of the main characters of the show as he had a paranormal-induced heart attack.^[6]

4 Eleven (Stranger Things)

Another number-themed murder child from Netflix’s lineup is Eleven from the streaming service’s hit series, Stranger Things (2016 – ). Eleven (El for short) was locked away by a mysterious figure referred to as “Papa” and experimented on as a child. As a result of Papa’s tampering, Eleven was endowed with telekinetic and telepathic powers, which often make her nose (and sometimes her ears) bleed when she uses them.

Despite being a mostly kind girl and avid lover of waffles, Eleven and her psionic abilities have racked up quite the body count. She has killed guards attempting to lock her in a dark room and even was responsible for destroying the titular monster of the first season, the Demogorgon. One of the most notable incidents occurred when Eleven caused an entire room of government agents (“bad men”) to hemorrhage to death using only her mind. She has also used her powers to flip a moving van several feet in the air while she and her friends were attempting to escape capture.^[7]

3 Janice (Annabelle: Creation)

Janice is one of the main characters in the second installment of the Annabelle trilogy from 2017. Having to use a wheelchair after a bad case of polio, Janice begins the movie as a kind girl who cares deeply for her best friend, Linda. Janice and Linda are a part of an orphanage run by Sister Charlotte. After their old orphanage closed, Sister Charlotte and her six young girls are welcomed into the home of a doll maker named Mr. Mullins.

However, it quickly becomes apparent that the house and Mr. Mullins himself harbor dark and deadly secrets. Soon after moving in, Janice is targeted and later possessed by a demon attached to the doll Annabelle. Janice’s entire personality soon changes, and she even regains her ability to walk. The demon that is now attached to her then goes on to murder Mr. Mullins and later crucify and mutilate his bedridden wife.

As the movie comes to a close, we see that Janice’s atrocities aren’t just confined to her adolescence. As a teenager, Janice (now Annabelle Higgins) joins a satanic cult and then later returns home to murder her parents, who had adopted her years before, unaware of her dark and gruesome past.^[8]

2 Village of the Damned (1960)

Next on our list of prepubescent terrors is not just one child but a whole brood. Though, due to their telepathically connected nature, they could easily be considered a unit. This ’60s black-and-white film is based on an earlier book called The Midwich Cuckoos, which tells the tale of a group of eerie alien children conceived under inexplicable circumstances.

The children, born with strange eyes and platinum-blonde hair, quickly begin to grow at an unnatural rate and exhibit telepathic powers. By the age of three, their appearance is that of a nine or ten-year-old. They are also abnormally intelligent and have a cold and unkind nature, causing many of the townspeople to resent them.

It also doesn’t help that the children are responsible for many vicious acts, such as forcing one of their mothers to stick her hand in boiling water as a form of punishment. They also kill a man by making him crash his car and then later force his brother to shoot himself in the head.^[9]

1 Lizzie Samuels (The Walking Dead)

Appearing in the fourth season of the AMC series The Walking Dead (2010–2022), Lizzie was a disturbed young girl who could not come to grips with the reality of zombies or “walkers.” She often did not see the flesh-eating walkers as threats and had a habit of naming them and referring to them as her “friends.” She even tried to play games with them and would get upset when they had to be killed.

Lizzie’s flawed perception ultimately came to a head when she tried to prove once and for all that walkers weren’t dangerous. She did this by stabbing her younger sister Mika to death and attempting to make others wait for her to reanimate, claiming that she wouldn’t hurt anybody. Lizzie would have done the same to another infant named Judith had two other adults not intervened.^[10]