10 Horror Movies That Dared To Kill Kids

7. Mimic - Hardened Street Youths Are No Match For Giant Killer Cockroaches

Guillermo del Toro obviously doesn’t have any qualms about killing children. 1997’s Mimic starts with the proliferation of a deadly disease carried by cockroaches that specifically targets children. In order to combat the disease, scientists genetically engineer a larger insect that secretes an enzyme that kills the disease-ridden cockroaches.

The project is a success, and since they designed the larger cockroaches to be female there is no risk of them reproducing. As Jeff Goldblum would attest, life, uh, finds a way and sure enough these genetically engineered bugs have grown even larger and developed the ability to, wait for it, mimic human beings. So it’s up to the scientists who designed them and some other unlucky b*stards to stop the humanoid insects from taking over the world.

Of course, the only reason the scientist finds out about this is because some street youths who were playing around in subway tunnels, as street youths are wont to do, and find the dead carcass of one of the large cockroaches. Since all street youths know entomologists, they bring it to the scientist who created it, who shells over cash for their discovery. Thinking they’ve struck gold, the youths head back down into the tunnels to try and find more, where they are savaged by a giant insect.

Contributor
Contributor

Ryan Lynch is a freelance journalist from the United States. He currently lives in Adelaide, Australia and writes for Adelaide-based music magazine Rip It Up. He wishes he could live like Hank Moody, but he watches too much TV and plays too many videogames to be that nonchalant.