It Runs in the Family: The First Families of Horror Part 2

You know what they say. Those who slay together, stay together! We’ve previously explored the First Families of Horror. While those groups were surely spooky, they didn’t strike absolute, all-encompassing fear into their house guests’ hearts.

Thus for Part 2, we’ve gathered the families that are the scariest (or most scared) in horror media. Peruse at your own peril!

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The Sawyers

Reader, meet Texas’ finest. The Sawyers are a group of cannibalistic killers living a quiet but disturbing life in Williamson County. The family members include Drayton, Nubbins, Chop-Top, and Leatherface, plus Grandma (RIP) and Grandpa Sawyer. Although they are all seemingly quiet and quaint, their house is full of horrors. Nubbins, a hitchhiker, draws stranded victims close to the home where Leatherface can kill them — as witnessed in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Drayton then cooks them up. Any uneaten parts are used to to make furniture and clothing. At least these guys aren’t wasteful!

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Firefly Family

Rob Zombie’s directorial debut House of 1000 Corpses introduces us to the sick and twisted Firefly family. Mother, Grandpa Hugo, Earl or “The Professor,” Captain Spaulding or “Cutter,” Baby, Otis B. Driftwood, Rufus Jr., and Tiny make up the excitable group who run a roadside museum/gas station. 1000 Corpses shows how they torture and mutilate a group of teens just for fun on Halloween night. Additionally, many of the family’s sexual acts are also perverse and disturbing, but the Fireflys don’t care. They just want to have a good time — at truly everyone else’s expense.

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The Strodes

The Strode women aren’t a horror family, but rather a family intrinsically linked to generations of horror. First, there’s Laurie Strode. She is the main survivor of Michael Myers’ 1978 killing spree. We’ll flash forward to the 2018 Halloween movies wherein Laurie has an estranged daughter named Karen Nelson as well as a granddaughter named Allyson. The trio reconcile their emotional differences so they can get back at Michael, fighting like hell to defeat an evil that has plagued their bloodline for decades. Finally, in Halloween Ends, their blood-soaked quest reached its conclusion.

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Chucky, Tiffany, and Glen/Glenda

Chucky the living doll is a sick, sadistic slasher. And then he gets a family. Does this make him settle down? Of course not. Instead, Chucky and his wife Tiffany Valentine murder together. It’s a pretty unique date night activity. Later, in Seed of Chucky, the pair discovers they have a son named Glen — who shares his doll body with his twin sister Glenda. Glen is a pacifist, but his sis takes after her dad. This troublesome quartet leave a lot of carnage in their wake as they try to figure out their new family dynamic!

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Hill House‘s Crain Family

The Crain Family from Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House are a tragic lot. From the moment the parents and their five children move into Hill House, they are plagued by paranormal phenomena. This giant mansion is also in disrepair, and the longer they all stay, the more they find themselves beholden to the house and all it contains. Even when the kids grow up and move out, they can’t move on. While there is much misery, however, there are also moments of overwhelming joy that will convince you without a doubt how much the Crains love each other.

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The Wilson Doppelgängers

Also known as the Tethered, these doppelgängers are exact copies of the Wilson family from Jordan Peele’s Us. However, these doubles live in an abandoned underground facility. Most of them have gone mad. They are genetically compelled to mimic their surface-world counterparts’ actions, and thus live without purpose or free will. Because of such dire conditions, they have been plotting a way to escape by murdering the originals and taking their places. The rampage they go on to exact this vengeance is quite chilling to watch.

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Get Out‘s Armitage Clan

Now here’s a family that isn’t quite as sinister on the surface. The Armitages from Jordan Peele’s Get Out seem friendly, open, and understanding. But the more you get to know them, the more you realize this is an act. Their animosity is hidden behind smiles and false pretense, which they utilize to lure unsuspecting young Black men to their doom. Such a story is made even more unsettling by the real-life racial prejudice held by many similar-looking families in America.

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Parasite‘s Kim Family

Once again, horror arrives in the form of a family who would otherwise appear pretty harmless. Parasite, director Bong Joon-ho’s highly awarded film, follows the impoverished Kim family. They live in Seoul and struggle to make ends meet until opportunity strikes. One by one, they scheme to start working for the wealthy Park family but that’s when corruption begins to infect the Kims. Parasite is an unsettling exploration of the lengths we’re willing to go to secure a comfortable life. And for the Kim family, there’s really no such thing as too far.

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Who are your favorite frightening families in horror? Share your petrifying picks over at Sideshow Social Network or in side.show/geekgroup, and don’t forget to Let Your Geek Sideshow!