A popular recipe in movies is to take something non-threatening and usual and make it scary. Since there's nothing as innocent as babies, other than puppies and kittens, perhaps, multiple horror movies decide to transform babies into a threat. Evil babies might look just like the good ones, but there's more to them than meets the eye.
Of course, evil children and toddlers are still a more popular choice because they can talk and move around better than babies, but despite that, movies have offered a fair share of evil babies as well. And the evilest babies of all come across as genuinely scary.
5 Rosemary's Baby (1968)
The most infamous evil baby appears in one of the iconic horror movies. Inspired by Ira Levin's novel, the movie centers on Mia Farrow's Rosemary, a woman who moves to a new place with her husband. Other than her somewhat strange neighbors, Rosemary likes her new home. At least until she gets pregnant and starts to believe that her child is the offspring of Satan himself.
Needless to say, Rosemary's pregnancy saps a lot of physical as well as mental strength out of her. And by the time the baby is born, Rosemary isn't doing well at all. The ending of the movie clears out once and for all whether Rosemary made it all up or whether her neighbors were evil. Even though the audience never gets to see Rosemary's newborn son Adrian in the movie, he still counts as evil because of the impact he has on his mother as well as what Adrian symbolizes. The movie was nominated for two Oscars and won one of them. Even though the book got a new adaptation in 2014 with Zoe Saldana, the original version remains the best.
4 It's Alive (1974)
Most babies are born innocent and sweet. But when mutation takes a place, the result can be deadly. It's Alive is a B-list horror 1970s movie that's mostly forgotten nowadays. It centers on a couple whose baby is born as a murdering monster with sharp teeth. The movie doesn't have an original story, but it does offer several impressive horror scenes.
Despite its less than stellar ratings it earned a remake It's Alive in 2009 which fixed some of its predecessor's mistakes but still didn't make it big in the world of horror movies. As such, It's Alive remains an interesting curiosity about a scary baby that doesn't work as well today as it must have at the time of its release almost 50 years ago.
3 Dawn Of The Dead (2004)
Evil babies sometimes play only a minor part in movies but still manage to leave a strong impression. The baby in the zombie movie Dawn of the Dead is a good example of that. When a zombie bites a pregnant woman, the woman turns into a zombie and then gives birth to a zombie baby.
It's not the only time a zombie baby has appeared in a movie. Another such occasion happened in the 2012 British underrated horror movie Cockney vs Zombies (2012). In both cases, the zombie baby isn't one of the main characters but still comes across as scary just like the rest of the zombies, regardless of their age. Finally, a zombie baby had a bit more screen time in Peter Jackson's 1992 movie Dead Alive in which a zombie also has a zombie baby.
2 Blessed (2004)
2004 saw the premiere of two movies with evil babies. Even though Rosemary's Baby has only been adapted a handful of times, other movies clearly drew inspiration from it. Blessed, with its ironic title, is one of them. Heather Graham stars as a woman who begins to believe that her twin children she's carrying are Satan's children.
Despite the fact that it features multiple known actors such as James Purefoy and Andy Serkis, Blessed mostly flew under the radar, and it doesn't have good ratings online. However, it's a good choice for every horror fan who wants to get more than one evil baby in a single movie.
1 Splice (2009)
Not all evil babies are human. Dren is the result of a genetic experiment where two scientists mixed human and animal genes together. Right from the start, it's obvious that Dren isn't like everybody else. At first, she seems harmless but as time progresses, it becomes clear that Dren doesn't think or feel the same way humans do. This leads to an inevitable disaster.
Despite that, it's possible to argue that the real people at fault are Clive and Elsa, the scientists who created Dren, not Dren herself. Vincenzo Natali has directed multiple thought-provoking science fiction movies, such as Cube (1997) or Cypher (2002), so Splice about the dangers of genetic engineering and manipulation fits well with the rest of his work. What makes the movie even more worth watching are the acting performances by Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, and Delphine Chanéac who played Dren.