10 Scariest Horror Movie Babies, Ranked | Pretty Reel

With the 2023 remake of The Exorcist on the horizon, horror fans might find themselves thinking about the creepy kids trope. Children are generally seen as innocent, sweet and kind, babies are the epitome of that, which is why the trope of inherently evil or murderous babies is so universally frightening.

Whether they were born evil or simply out of control, whether they look deceptively human or blatantly monstrous, these terrifying horror movie babies cause untold chaos and destruction before they can even walk or talk.

10/10 Grace – Grace

Many parents say their baby is a miracle. At first, that’s exactly what Grace appears to be: a stillborn child who inexplicably comes back to life. But her newly widowed mother, Madeline, soon realizes that her daughter’s survival comes at a high price.

Despite all the fury surrounding her, Grace herself isn’t much of a threat. Apart from her bloodthirstiness, she can do exactly as much as an ordinary newborn, which is to say: not much. The only time she shows her teeth is in the final seconds of the film, where Madeline reveals that growing Grace’s intensive breastfeeding is tearing her chest apart.

9/10 Selwyn – Living Dead

Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (or Braindead to New Zealanders) balances extreme gore and extreme gore exceptionally well. A stark example of this is baby Selwyn, born from the zombified affair of Father McGruder and Nurse McTavish, a sight that horrifies poor Lionel.

Selwyn’s large face is frozen in a permanent hungry grin, and he must be restrained with barbed wire to prevent him from attacking any humans within range. Although he can and does kill, his threat level is lessened by the fact that he is easily pushed around, as Lionel demonstrates when arguing with him at the park.

8/10 Ruth’s Baby – Prevenge

This baby can’t even wait to be born to stir up trouble, as long as you stick to the interpretation that his mother Ruth really hears his voice and isn’t just hallucinating. She snaps her mother out of her depression by ordering her to kill those responsible for her father’s recent death in a rock climbing accident.

Perhaps reflecting his mother’s pent-up emotions and desires, baby Ruth already seems very unimpressed with the world, making observations and giving orders with a bored and arrogant air. Indifferent to Ruth’s moral blocks, she is often impatient with her mother’s reluctance to commit her murders. Although she seems like a normal baby after birth, is she really, or can Ruth just not hear her anymore?

7/10 Sebastian – 12/12/12

Also known as Evil Born, 12/12/12 is one of The Asylum’s notorious mockbusters that raises the plot of more famous horror films, in this case those that focus on newborn Antichrists. . Its villain is the infant Sebastian, whose birth heralds the coming of the end of the world and is already capable of sadism and violence.

Sebastian not only looks like the role of a bringer of apocalypse, but does it right out of the womb. He kills his entire delivery crew, takes on a doomsday cult that wants to use him as a weapon, and attacks his own mother. By the end of the film, almost the entire cast is dead because of him.

6/10 Kyoko’s Baby – Ju-on: The Grudge 2

Harming their baby is the biggest fear of parents everywhere, which is why there are so many horror movies about parenthood. The Ju-on franchise features not only the ghost of Toshio, a murdered child, but also that of his mother Kayako. This second movie sees Kayako target the pregnant Kyoko.

Kyoko’s delivery room becomes the center of a storm of supernatural chaos, from her fiancé committing suicide to Toshio scaring all of his doctors to death. Instead of a newborn, Kayako emerges from Kyoko and murders the only witness. But when Kyoko wakes up, she finds a seemingly normal baby waiting for her. Is it Kayako in a new form? His reincarnation? Does she own the child? None of the possibilities are good.

5/10 Henry’s Baby – Eraserhead

One of the most grotesque babies in movie history is the horrified protagonist’s newborn baby in Eraserhead. It is said that the accessory was made from an embalmed calf or lamb fetus, but these are only rumors. To date, director David Lynch has never divulged how exactly he created the creature.

While Henry’s baby is powerless to hurt anyone even if he wanted to, his terror lies in his inexplicability. He’s unlike anything his parents have ever known, from his looks to his laughter to his strange illness, and neither knows exactly what to do with him. When Henry cuts off his bandages in a fit of rage, he discovers to his horror that he’s done worse than expected: those bandages were essentially his skin, and his insides are unlike any human in the world.

4/10 The Brood – The Brood

It may be one of the most obscure horror films of the 1970s, but it’s every bit as chilling as any of David Cronenberg’s most famous body horror movies (like The Fly, which also has a terrifying birth streak but is disqualified because he’s just a nightmare). Nola Carveth undergoes psychoplasmic therapy to rid herself of her explosive anger, transferring the emotion to growths in her body that turn into children.

Her ex-husband watches her in shock as she “delivers” one, licking it like an animal would. Although the children she has already fathered are the same age as her natural daughter, Nola has only recently started this therapy: they are more or less infants. Psychically linked to Nola, they become violent when she is angered and hunt down the objects of her rage in packs, even trying to kill their half-sister Candice at will.

3/10 Adrian Woodhouse – Rosemary’s Baby

Unlike antichrists like Damian Thorn, who doesn’t get scary until he’s older, this son of Satan takes a heavy toll on his mother from inside the womb, making her crave meat. raw and guts, losing a dangerous amount of weight and going through several months of agony: all signs of what he will do to the world when he is mature.

In a shining example of the horror rule that what you don’t see is scarier than what you do, viewers never see what Rosemary’s baby actually looks like, only Rosemary’s utter panic at her appearance as she cries out to the cult celebrating her birth. Any newborn that can make their mother’s face look like this must be terrifying.

2/10 Chestburster – Alien

Nobody ever said that only humanoid babies were qualified. In one of sci-fi’s best thrillers, the xenomorph is first killed at birth, destroying Kane’s innards and leaving him bleeding on the breakfast table. The baby takes a moment before walking away to hiss at Kane’s horrified teammates, letting everyone know what a vicious job it will be when he grows up.

Throughout the franchise, being imbued with a Chestburster is the pervasive fear of every character who comes into contact with xenomorphs and their eggs, with several unlucky hosts begging to be killed before the alien can emerge. The little worm-like creatures can’t do much harm once they’re out, but their birth is a guaranteed excruciating death sentence for their hosts.

1/10 Davis Baby – It’s Alive

As the movie’s tagline goes, there’s only one thing wrong with baby Davis: he’s alive. A mutant with huge spider-like fangs and sharp claws, he slaughters his mother’s entire delivery team and escapes to wreak havoc on the city. All the police deploy to destroy it and conceal its existence.

Despite his father’s terror of his own child and his insistence that he be killed, he is not at all evil like the other horror babies. He’s just a confused newborn kid lashing out at the world. However, while naughtiness is deliberate and can be targeted, an infant’s emotions change in no time. When his hungers, fears, and temper have instant deadly consequences, the result is the endless terror of never knowing when he will be unleashed next and against whom.