Entertainment Weekly - October 20, 2017

Dead Space 2

2011

06 Amnesia: The

Dark Descent

2010

05 Outlast

2013

04 P.T.

2014

03 Silent Hill 2

2001

02 Resident Evil 7:

Biohazard

2017

01

classic 1961 episode ofThe

Twilight Zone “It’s a Good

Life.” For Mumy, fear of chil-

dren ties, paradoxically, into

the fundamental innocence

of the unformed mind.

“There’s an unspoken kind of

understanding, or an accep-

tance, that a really young

child may indeed be able to

pick up or tune in to energies

from other dimensions. They

haven’t been really pro-

grammed not to do that yet.”

And there’s an element of

playfulness when a child goes

wrong that seems unconscio-

nably freaky—yet also, oddly,

relatable. “Imagination plays

such a heavier role in little

kids,” Mumy explains. We,

as an adult audience, subcon-

sciously recall when we our-

selves had imaginary friends.

It’s a somewhat believable

horror/sci-fi fantasy.”

It’s no coincidence,

perhaps, thatThe Bad Seed

and “It’s a Good Life” both

hail from the baby-boom

postwar era. It was the first

time in the world’s history

that childhood itself could

become a dominating

phenomenon. By the time

director Richard Donner

took onThe Omen, the cul-

ture had weathered the storm

of the counterculture, an

epoch-turning occurrence

that is often framed in gen-

erational terms. Looking

back onThe Omen’s success,

Donner suspects that the

audience responded most of

all to star Gregory Peck’s

fearful paranoia: The anxiety

of a parent unsure what their

child is becoming. “It was an

insecurity,” Donner says.

“‘What have I brought into

this world?’ ”

It’s notable that Stephen

King, the baby boomers’ high

priest of horror, has featured

a few freaky kids: Revenant

Gage inPet Sematary, all

the children in all the corn.

Even little Danny inThe

Shining seems removed from

the normal flow of humanity,

tied to higher powers that

our adult minds can’t under-

stand. And consider the

beginning ofHalloween, the

genre-launching zeitgeist

sensation. The film begins

from the point of view of

a killer, leering through a

window and killing a young

woman. Only at the end of

the scene do we reach the

grisly punchline: the revela-

tion that killer Michael Myers

is just a little boy.

So is the bad-seed genre

secretly conservative—the

work of an older generation

freaked out by the natural

evolution that young children

represent? The genre’s golden

age ended afterThe Omen,

perhaps because the baby

boomers themselves were

nostalgic for their own youth.

It makes sense, then, that

the most popular scary kid in

the past few years is actually

a hero. Eleven onStranger

Things was raised in seclusion

by Matthew Modine’s scien-

tist, who seeks to utilize her

skills while removing her

from the world: the helicopter

parent run despotically amok.

Eleven even has some of

Anthony Fremont’s powers—

but unlike Anthony, she also

has friends, a hip squad of

outcasts who teach her a

moral code built on comic

books and youth culture. It’s

a vision that has resonated

triumphantly, and it cleverly

reframes the whole idea of the

bad seed into a more optimis-

tic (and very pro-millennial)

notion: The parents are crazy,

but at least the kids are all

right. Donner suspects the

eternal battle between old

and young will continue.

“Animals eat their young,”

the director says with a laugh.

“There are a lot of people in

the world who check the back

of their kid’s head to see if

there is anything growing out

of it. Like three 6s.”


( Clockwise
from top left )
Millie Bobby
Brown on
Stranger Things
(2016); Harvey
Stephens inThe
Omen (1976);
Macaulay
Culkin in
The Good Son
(1993);
Bill Mumy in
“It’s a Good
MCCORMACK, CULKIN, MUMY: EVERETT COLLECTION (3); BROWN: NETFLIX; STEPHENS: FOX/KOBAL/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKLife” (1961)