The Exorcist
- One of the main characters in The Exorcist is based on the young girl Regan (Linda Blair) who begins to start acting different and her attitude changes from an innocent child, to an evil, dangerous character that affects all around her. Regan not only changes physically in the way she looks, but also mentally as the acts she carries out is not partially undertaken by a child as young as 12 years old. You can see the clear and quick transformation of Regan and use of the typical representations of a child in horror films, however this film has adapted to the use of both of the charcacter archetypes for a child. Such as the 'Innocent victim' at the start of the film we see Regan in her normal form ,as a regular 12 year and not causing problems or acting a partially strange manor.

- In general children are seen as innocent due to their ages and lack of knowledge compared to adults, so by having 'evil child' portrayed by in horror films makes its more effective because it's not 'normal' and doesn't tend to happen in reality. However this can build up and create fear for audiences including adults, having th fear that children or even their own child could adapt to these characteristics of the 'evil child' which makes these films effective.
http://horrornews.net/41413/top-10-most-stereotyped-characters-in-horror-films/
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