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Take a look at the tyke who plays Damien in The Omen remake. Do the dorky haircut and malevolent squint remind you of anything? Yes, it's Problem Child, the 1990 laff-riot in which John Ritter's adopted son turns out to be a nun-abusing, clown-punching kiddy-from-hell in alarming proof that, sometimes, comedies can be even more horrific than horror movies.
New model Damien is so blatantly evil he might as well twirl his moustache, were he old enough to grow one - and who's to say devil children born of jackals can't sprout facial hair at will? Unfortunately for his evil kiddy credentials, though, The Omen has opened one week after the re-release of two of the creepiest juvenile performances in cinema history. The devil only knows how director Jack Clayton coaxed such a chilling blend of innocence and corruption out of Martin
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The Omen can’t lay claim to the spookiest horror child ever, says anne billson
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Stephens and Pamela Franklin in The Innocents, his adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. But when young Stephens kisses his governess (Deborah Kerr) on the mouth, it's one of the most disquieting screen smackers ever filmed.
But that's a rare case of an evil kiddy film in which the brats are genuinely scary. The Bad Seed, starring Patty McCormack as an eight-year-old killer in pigtails, now looks hopelessly camp. And after Oliver! it's hard to take little Mark Lester seriously as a psycho in Diabolica Malicia, even when he electrocutes his mother and beds Britt Ekland. But spooky sprog completists might like to track down another Italian chiller, Operazione Paura (aka Kill, Baby, Kill), featuring a giggling little girl ghost guaranteed to send shivers down the spine. Damien eat your heart out. 
FIRST POSTED JUNE 8, 2006
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