As soon as there’s a little kid in a scary movie, you know something paranormal is about to go down. Some of the most famous horror films include a creepy little kid: Poltergeist, The Exorcist, Child’s Play, The Sixth Sense, Village of The Damned, The Shining, The Omen, The Ring, and the list goes on. If a kid is fixated on a certain spot in the house? There’s a ghost there. If they find a doll or some kind of toy in the house? It’s possessed. If they have any imaginary friend? Get a priest ASAP. If they’re comfortable with sitting in the dark alone? Demon baby, be afraid.

Deny it if you will, but I think we might be a little bit scared of children. Or perhaps we like the chilling contrast of the idea of an innocent child actually hatching a plot of evil. It makes me wonder whether we enjoy ideas of innocence tainted.

Little kids are a lot smarter than people give them credit for. They have insights that are not over-complicated by adult-like anxieties and greediness. Kids are the people who can sometimes point out what should be obvious to us, and in a way it can be unsettling. If we’re the grown-ups, the wiser more intelligent ones, how come kids, in some ways, seem to have the answers to the simplest of questions that constantly elude us?

I think that’s why there’s an element of fear involved. It’s frightening to see a child know things that we don’t know. And that juxtaposition of the small bright-eyed, chubby-cheeked child actually being the Antichrist is a sure way to scare people. Why else would we, time and again, incorporate children into horror?

As I’ve mentioned in previous Oh, The Horror posts, the viewing of horror films has an element of sadism. And part of that sadism is to see the perfect wholesome image of a child tarnished by influences of pure evil via ghosts and demons. It’s such a contrast to the carefree, giggling innocence of actual children that we can’t help but secretly enjoy it, as strange and awful as that sounds. Horror is all about seeing good things go bad, so seeing a toddler follow the commands of a possessed doll is probably the ultimate embodiment of that concept.

Both the very young and very old, the latter of whim I talked about in last week’s Oh, The Horror, are a source of fascination in horror. We are drawn in by the extreme ends of age and twisting the norms of it. The truth is, adults are way more of a danger to children than children are to adults. Yet in horror, that idea is completely turned on its head, the adults are the victimized ones and the children are abusive. Perhaps that’s what makes a movie like Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs so refreshing, because the antagonists are the strict, mean parents, and the hero is a young boy.

Horror for young kids, such as books like Goosebumps, will often show the other side of it just like The People Under the Stairs. The parents will not believe the cries of the child that there’s a monster in the closet, and it’s up to kids to take matters into their own hands. For young people reading and viewing horror, these are positive ideas. Often, adults fail young children. The kid always points out there’s a ghost, a presence, something rattling under the bed and are ignored until it’s too late. Suddenly you have the forces of the underworld taking over your house and chainsaws buzzing outside your window. All in all, the creepy kid trope has both its downfalls and benefits; it’s an interesting contrast that is very reliable for scares, but also worth experimenting with and changing up since it’s been so overused.

Next week I look at The Purge franchise, and the ways in which its message has been twisted.

No matter what happens, though, one characteristic of demonic possession always stays the same: the insatiable lust of the demon, now acting through its female host—and it’s almost always a female character. Evidently, we’re more easily tainted. Or, at least, we are according to some ancient patriarchal religious idea that says women are more susceptible to being invaded by Satan. In fact, it’s such an age-old popular concept, that even if contemporary directors are not deliberately trying to propagate the masses with sexist messages, they rarely stray from this plot.

But not only does the demon possess the woman or girl in the movie, it almost always has to have some kind of utterly creepy or manipulative sexual manifestation. I’ll focus on three films in particular (analyzing all the demonic possession films with female sexuality as a key element would take a century). The most obvious example is, of course, the classic 1973 The Exorcist—basically the bread-and-butter of demonic possession films. In the movie, a demon possesses a 12-year-old girl named Regan. Aside from the green vomit, backwards crawling, and head spinning, the demon sexualizes Regan, making her say vulgar things to those around her. There’s the infamous “lick me” scene, in which Regan appears to be stabbing her vagina with what appears to be a crucifix, yelling “lick me”; she even pushes her mother’s face into her bloodied crotch.

Next we have 2010 Spanish horror film Exorcismus, in which 15-year-old Emma Evans is the victim of possession. In one scene she’s sitting with her friend Rose and begins to fall into a strange trance like state. She then starts to caress Roses’ hand, looking at her suggestively while twisting her head closer with her mouth open. Rose responds by leaning in for the kiss. Emma pulls away and starts shouting homophobic slurs at her, claiming that she knew her friend was gay and was attempting to trick her. Here, the demon uses sexuality to seduce and manipulate people, suggesting that the whole interaction was wrong or immoral in the first place. Emma comes out of the trance and has no idea what she’s said or what’s happened.

Then there’s The Last Exorcism (2010), in which Nell, a farmer’s teen daughter, is possessed by a demon. It’s found out later in the movie that she is pregnant, and her father insists that Nell is a virgin and that the demon has somehow made her body “impure.” The Evangelical minister in the film decides that Nell is not possessed, but distressed over the loss of her virginity, which is proven wrong later in the film. In one scene during an exorcism attempt, Nell—while under the possessive hold of the demon—asks the priest if he would like “a blowing job” (yes, she actually called it a “blowing” job).

In all three of these movies, the demons have at least one sexual manifestation. And, put bluntly, it seems to come down to this idea that demons make women horny. While possessed women in horror films do make some sexual statements that are obviously immoral (say those of a incestuous nature), these movies mostly seem to suggest women have repressed  sexuality that only demons can somehow conjure. We couldn’t possibly have a sex drive of our own accord; it’s the demons, duh! A good holy woman would never have sexual urges! (It should be noted that in the few movies that feature demonic or malevolent possession of men, most notably, The Amityville Horror, the male character rarely acts in a sexual manner as a result of the possession.)

I think these movies might be confusing demons with hormones. In fact, maybe I too was possessed when I was going through the embarrassing grips of puberty, blasting my angst-ridden punk music and attempting to understand the mechanics of a tampon. It should go without saying that female sexuality isn’t evil or demonic. Sexy dancing, moaning, and sexual statements do not mean that the demon king Pazuzu is now inside you, nor do these actions mean you’re now the forever accursed Angela from Night of the Demons. It’s high time that demonic possession movies start conjuring up other ways to make demons evil, and avoid the need to use women’s bodies and sexuality as a platform to convey this.

Next week I take a look at a disturbing 2000s horror movie trend, the rise of the torture film.