“Scary experiences are only fun if they are couched in the context of play,” Scrivner said. But a child’s interest in horror is “almost always a harmless fascination,” said Coltan Scrivner, a research scientist at the Recreational Fear Lab at Denmark’s Aarhus University.

The Sumner family of Idaho, whose matriarch Kailee posts on TikTok as recently went viral when their youngest member, still in the babbling stages of babyhood, was filmed growling at his older sister in a decrepit witch mask.Īdorable kids and horror paraphernalia seem like an incongruous pairing.

The Lopez kids aren’t the only youngins interested in the macabre: Briar Rose Beard, a cherubic 3-year-old from Florida, recently enchanted the internet by falling in love with a Halloween prop baby doll named Creepy Chloe and toting the demonic-looking doll everywhere.

Attempting to scare each other has become a treasured family pastime. Oftentimes, Aubriella and her little brother will just stare at their mother from underneath their creepy rubber masks. Lopez documents their scary shenanigans on TikTok: Sometimes Dominic will hide under beds dressed like Pennywise the Dancing Clown from “It” or reveal a hockey mask à la Jason of “Friday the 13th” beneath his beloved Myers facade.

Brave little ones clothing