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Post by billdemo2 on Dec 25, 2015 21:33:24 GMT
The evil child has been such a staple of horror in movies and TV. I was trying to come up with a list of short stories featuring evil children, but I could only remember the obvious ones. Does anyone have more to add? Jerome Bixby- It's a Good life (When 3-year old Anthony is around, you should only think "good" thoughts.) Ray Bradbury - The Small Assassin (Alice gives birth to a healthy baby boy, but she fears he is trying to kill her.) Jane Rice - Idol of the Flies (Young Pruitt torments his servants and his teacher, He also has a fly idol that he prays to.) Stephen King - Children of the Corn (A married couple stumble across a strange religious cult involving a group of children in rural Nebraska.) Richard Matheson - Born of Man and Woman ("Last I will hang head down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn’t be nice to me. If they try to beat me again I’ll hurt them. I will.") William Trevor - Miss Smith (A young Irish boy is bullied by his teacher and ends up devising a devastating revenge.)
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Post by dem bones on Dec 25, 2015 22:28:12 GMT
We just included a particularly nasty one on our calendar - Kate Farrell's The Efficient Use Of Reason. You might also like to try the same author's My Name Is Mary Sutherland. Some to be getting on with: Charles Birkin - Marjorie's On Starlight R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Cradle Demon Peter Tremayne - The Samhain Feis W. Baker-Evans - The Children Victor Rousseau - Child Or Demon: Which? Ray Bradbury - The Playground Robert Bloch - Sweets To The Sweet Saki - Gabriel-Ernst Richard Matheson – Drink My Red Blood Peter Haining's Deadly Nightshade and Scary! anthologies concern themselves with kids, though not all of the protagonists are evil. Likewise Roger Elwood & Vic Ghidalea's Little Monsters.
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Post by ramseycampbell on Dec 26, 2015 11:56:30 GMT
Another Bradbury - "The Veldt". And yet I'm sure he was fond of his children.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 26, 2015 17:35:59 GMT
Another Bradbury - "The Veldt". And yet I'm sure he was fond of his children. The kid in The Man Upstairs isn't especially pleasant either, though I guess there are extenuating circumstances. The Pan Horrors were good for 'evil' children. Aside from the W. Baker-Evans classic in #8, two that come unpleasantly to mind are Martin Ricketts' The Nursery Club and Robert Ashley's Pieces Of Mary in #12.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2015 16:39:15 GMT
Andre Norton's hit and miss anthology Small Shadows Creep about ghost children could be a small off-shoot. Best story from that was E.F. Benson's 'How Fear Departed From The Long Gallery' if I recall.
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Post by bobby on Dec 28, 2015 0:33:18 GMT
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Post by bobby on Dec 28, 2015 0:41:30 GMT
Robert Bloch - Sweets To The Sweet The first time I read this story, in a paperback edition of Pleasant Dreams, I immediately thought "This is just like the EC story "Daddy Lost His Head!". That's how I found out that EC "swiped" plots from published stories. (Though in EC's version of this Bloch story, the child is completely innocent; the candy voodoo doll is made by a neighbor, "Mrs. Thaumaturge".)
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Post by bobby on Dec 28, 2015 0:57:49 GMT
There's also the Barnes & Noble anthology Nursery Crimes, though the theme is more "children and evil" than "evil children"; the stories include "The Turn of the Screw" and "The October Game".
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2015 12:15:21 GMT
Stephen King's latest collection includes a particularly obnoxious evil kid in a story creatively entitled BAD LITTLE KID. Highlight of the collection so far, to be honest.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 3, 2016 9:40:10 GMT
Can't vouch for this collection as I don't have a copy, but if the editor is playing fair, it should qualify. Thanks to Mr. Fanatic for providing the cover scan! Roger Elwood & Vic Ghidalea (eds) - Young Demons (Avon 1972) Theodore Surgeon - Introduction: Young Demons
Saki - Sredni Vashtar Kris Neville - Bettyann R. A. Lafferty - The Transcendent Tigers Anne McCaffrey - Apple Ray Bradbury - The Small Assassin Joe L. Hensley - Shut the Last Door Katherine MacLean - Games Jack Williamson - Jamboree
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Post by bobby on Jan 25, 2016 1:39:53 GMT
How could I have forgotten the EC story "The Orphan" (in Shock SuspenStories #14)? It's one of the stories that was singled out by the Senate Subcommitte! (I think it was controversial in the UK as well. The entire story was reprinted (in B & W) in the book A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign.)
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Post by ripper on Jan 26, 2016 9:35:05 GMT
Bobby, I think you are right about 'The Orphan' being controversial. Doesn't it end up with the little girl either winking or smirking at the reader over what she has done in the tale? In the early 1990s--I feel sure it was 1992 or 1993 at Halloween--BBC2 did one of their 'Vault of Horror' or maybe it was 'Mystery Train' programmes with a segment on EC, and they mentioned 'The Orphan' and how it had been so controversial, and also showed panels from the story, including that final one. I had not realised it was from Shock SuspenStories, always assuming it was from one of their 3 horror titles. I have a small number of reprints of ShockSuspenStories but not that particular issue.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 26, 2016 20:48:05 GMT
Bobby, I think you are right about 'The Orphan' being controversial. Shock SuspenStories had a few controversial stories - there's the one about the young guy who goes to the electric chair, and as we go through his life we see it was his parents who caused him to go off the rails.
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Post by jamesdoig on Jan 27, 2016 9:05:55 GMT
Bobby, I think you are right about 'The Orphan' being controversial. They were also pretty rude to hillbillies, or "sons of the soil" as they prefer to be called (according to Dr Hibbert). Viz this two page extract from The Haunt of Fear:
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Post by ripper on Jan 27, 2016 9:47:18 GMT
James, great spread from Haunt of Fear. I am sure there must also be other examples of 'bad seeds' from the EC stable and other comics of the era. 'The Orphan' was, I think, shocking at the time as the girl gets away with it. I think BBC2 said something like that particular story appeared to anti-horror comic campaigners as being a blueprint for getting rid of your parents. In the film of 'The Bad Seed' the ending had to be changed so that the little girl didn't get away with her murders, and right at the end the cast does a kind of curtain-call, play-style, to demonstrate that it was just a story, in an attempt to blunt criticism.
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