Horror Movie Kids Who Grew Up To Be Stunning

A surefire way to increase the scares in any horror movie is to add a creepy kid — nothing weirds people out more than a child who may be evil or tormented or just not quite right. Remember those platinum blond ankle-biters in Village of the Damned? How about that emo-awful well-dweller in The Ring or the not-so-cute-and-cuddly toddler in Pet Semetary? From rebellious vampires to bad babysitters to dolls — seriously, what's with the dolls?— we've caught up with the child actors who probably should have been scarred for life after playing their parts in these frightening flicks and slasher films.

Can you believe it's been more than 15 years since The Ring first hit theaters? The haunting image of Samara, the girl in the well seeking her revenge on everyone who somehow still owns a VCR (though that wasn't so crazy in 2002, when the horror movie debuted) still hasn't left our heads. It wasn't just her creepy, jerky moves that terrified us. It was what she looked like, too. (She even scared herself!)

Even if you're not a fan of the horror genre, chances are you've heard of Freddy Krueger, but would you recognize actor Robert Englund if you passed him in the street? Englund played the iconic villain for the first time in 1984's A Nightmare on Elm Street and went on to reprise the role a whopping seven times, making his final bow as the scarred serial killer in 2003's Freddy vs. Jason. Englund might be a legend in horror circles, but he isn't anywhere near as famous as the Krueger character. It's a problem that the actors behind many horror movie villains have to live with — you give your all to a role, and yet nobody ever sees your face.

The hallmark of a good monster movie is, of course, a great monster, as proven by the likes of The Blob, The Thing, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. The same goes for horror TV shows. And while the world of modern movie and TV monsters is crowded with CGI and digital animation, there are still some actors who take on the task of making the most grotesque and complicated creatures come to life. Would The Fly have been as emotionally poignant without Jeff Goldblum's grueling transformation? Would The Birds have been terrifying without the, well, birds?

Even before she really did anything, you could tell the nun was bad news. Played by actress Bonnie Aarons, the demonic entity from The Conjuring film universe made its first appearance in 2016's The Conjuring 2, and the villain proved so effective that it received its own spin-off movie, The Nun, in 2018.