Children in thriller films.

Many thriller films use children as a motif throughout, such as 'The Woman In Black', 'The Shining', 'The Orphanage', 'The Sixth Sense', 'The Others' and many more. 
Children are used in, especially psychological, thrillers for many reasons. Firstly children are seen as outside of society, in the 'adult' world we have rules and norms that we follow, children do not fall into this category and are so used to portray things, such as seeing poltergeist, to dismiss any disbelief or scepticism from the audience. 
Secondly, children are not supposed to be out of the ordinary or scary, by taking this and manipulating it so they seem this way, it pushes doubt into our natural way of thinking, and allows for directors to take what is a normal comfort and change it into something that makes an audience feel scared or uneasy. This juxtaposition is a common feature used in thriller films as it adds an element of unexpectedness to films and keeps the audience on edge.

The Orphanage (2007) Director - J.A Bayona

'A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage for handicapped children. Before long, her son starts to communicate with an invisible new friend.' (IMDB)

In The Orphanage, children are a recurring motif and carry the film's eerie nature throughout. The setting of an orphanage gives an instant unknowing feel to the film, as the children shown have no direct links to anybody around them. This gives the film a new level of unexpectedness as, as the audience, we can't gauge anything about these children and must rely on the way they behave to find out information about them. This again brings in the idea of children being separate from the norms of society, and allows the film makers to really twist the film by abruptly changing the behaviour of children the audience felt were 'safe' and passing it off as their unpredictable nature.


In The Orphanage, and many other psychological thrillers such as 'The Conjuring', the use of children's games is predominant in creating a tension-filled, dark atmosphere. The innocence of the game played by the children, 'One..two..three..knock at the door' where one stands facing away from the other and on 'knock at the door' must turn around whilst the others freeze, allows the director to give control to the children- whereby they can control the adult in the scene. By giving the control to the children it leaves the adult and the audience with a  feeling of the unknown- that anything could be just out of sight or reach. 

This scene reinforces the idea of the unknown as the child is placed behind the turned back of the adult in a dark room, the darkened room added to the theme of the creepy, unwanted children being in control it pushes the fear of the unknown and keeps the audience on edge for the entire scene.
The sound in this scene also hugely contributes to the eerie mise-en-scene. The voices of the children, using an innocent yet sinister tone when speaking gives the scene a cold atmosphere. Children's voices and laughter is often used in thriller films, directors can again manipulate the innocence of the 'untainted' child's mind to portray  sinister events, in juxtaposing the eerie nature of the scene and the innocent, normal behaviour of children the director gives the effect that such 

 

(geeksofdoom.com)

The main 'ghost-child's' face, in The Orphanage, is also covered with a woven bag, and covered with a child's drawing of a face. The covering of the main antagonists face is a common feature in thriller's, and gives the effect of distortion whilst also  removing their identity giving them anonymity and allowing for the audiences imagination to replace it with whatever they find scary or disturbing. 




The use of the children's drawing is another common feature of thrillers, in The Woman In Black, children's drawings are used to foreshadow horrific events yet to come and in The Orphanage these drawings give us a glimpse of the children's eerie mentality. The use of these drawings gives, again, something ordinary and everyday that edge that turns it into something fearful.