From Haddonfield to hellish hotels and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills... as Halloween looms, can YOU take a stab in the dark and guess these former horror film child stars?

It's an all too familiar tableau - high street shops filled with the same ghoulish costumes, harassed parents overspending on the same family-sized bags of sweets and late night TV schedules crammed with the same ageing horror films.

Indeed, the witching hour is almost upon us as Halloween looms, promising the inevitable advent of trick-or-treaters and, for those of a certain age, an equally probable night spent revisiting some of those legendary movie classics.

A rite of passage for many, films such as Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, William Friedkin's The Exorcist, and of course, John Carpenter's iconic Halloween have helped define the horror genre.

But beyond the blood, the gore and the cinematic carnage, they have also provided a professional foothold for more than one hitherto unknown child actor.

From Haddonfield to the Overview Hotel via Indian burial grounds, the realm of the undead and, um, Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills , MailOnline has travelled far and wide in search of those who made an early impact on the genre.

But who are they? Grab some popcorn and and take a peek. We'll be right back...

With no major stars and a soaring budget, Warner Bros. feared the worst before William Friedkin's The Exorcist had even been released.

But those initial studio concerns were soon cast aside as the film - an adaptation of William Peter Blatty's spine-chilling 1971 novel - raked in $1.9 million during its first week in US cinemas.

By the end of 1974 that figure had soared to $66.3 million ($319 million in 2024) and The Exorcist was well on the way to becoming one of the greatest horror films of all time.

Its undeniable success was owed in no small part to its youngest cast-member, 14-year old Linda Blair.

Picked from a list of 600 applicants, Blair became an overnight success thanks to her role as Reagan MacNeil, a young girl possessed by the devil who becomes the subject of a prolonged exorcism.

The child star won Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for the role, and she later admitted the film had a huge impact on her life.

Blair reprised her role in 1977 sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic, but the year would end controversially when she was arrested for drug possession, receiving three years probation.

Now 65, the actress has made periodic appearances on film and TV since getting her big break - but The Exorcist remains her defining achievement.

He can see dead people, or at least he could, back when he was making a name for himself in M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 classic The Sixth Sense.

Starring alongside Hollywood icon Bruce Willis, child star Haley Joel Osment won richly deserved plaudits for his role as Cole Sear, a nine-year old boy who is cursed with the ability to see ghosts.

Osment himself was 10 and a rising star when he took the role - for which he received an Academy Award nomination - but it wasn't his first taste of mainstream cinema.

Five years earlier, the young actor made his big screen debut in Forrest Gump, playing Tom Hanks' son Forrest, Jnr in the Robert Zemeckis directed blockbuster.

It was an auspicious start for Osment, but the extreme high that culminated in The Sixth Sense led to extreme lows such as film flops The World Made Me Straight, Yoga Hosers and Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town.

Osment has also lent his voice to a series of high profile animated features, among them The Hunchback of Notre Dame II, Country Bears and The Jungle Book II - in which he voiced Mowgli.

In 2006, he was also sentenced to probation after pleading no contest to charges of drunken driving and marijuana possession.

'My parents used to say when I first started out in this industry, "If it's ever not fun, you can quit tomorrow",' he recently told E! News.

'And when I got to be college age, I got to go off and study theatre and really think hard about whether I wanted to do this as my career in life.

'The answer has always been yes at all these junctures. It's still a job that I really enjoy, despite all the uncertainty and the difficulty of being able to plan your life three to six months out.'

Now 36, he will be starring in Zoë Kravitz 's new directorial debut film, Blink Twice , alongside Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Alia Shawkat and Christian Slater.

With her platinum blonde hair and angelic features, Heather O'Rourke served as a the focal point in Tobe Hooper's 1982 tale about a suburban family who find themselves terrorised by a spectral entity.

The actress, then just seven-years old, played schoolgirl Carol Anne Freeling in the film, a role she would reprise in sequels Poltergeist II: The Other Side and Poltergeist III.

She also starred in 12 episodes of iconic American sitcom Happy Days, as well as popular shows Fantasy Island and CHiPs.

But O'Rourke's career was tragically cut short when she died suddenly in 1988 from cardiac arrest, aged 12.

The young actress, who was battling Crohn's disease after being diagnosed the previous year, passed away during surgery to repair an acute bowel obstruction.

She was subsequently entombed at Pierce Brothers' Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles.

She's perhaps best known for her regular appearances on The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, Kyle Richards was nowhere near the upscale Los Angeles enclave when she starred in Halloween.

The reality TV star played nine-year Lindsey Wallace in John Carpenter's slasher classic - one of two children to be famously babysat by Jamie Lee Curtis during Michael Myers' murderous rampage in the fictional town of Haddonfield.

The film, in addition to her role on Little House On The Prairie, launched Richards' career as a child actress. She went on to star in The Watcher In The Woods and the TV series, Down To Earth,

After finding success as a child, she also got married early on.

The actress married Guraish Aldjufrie in 1988 after falling pregnant when she was just 19 years old.

They welcomed their daughter, Farrah Aldjufrie, that year. However, the marriage didn't last long as they divorced in 1992.

Soon after she met her next husband, real estate mogul Mauricio Umansky, in a nightclub.

They announced their engagement in 1994 and married two years later. Their daughter, Alexia, was born that same year in 1996, and Sophia came four years later in 2000.

All the while, she continued to act with a recurring role in the TV series ER from 1998 to 2006.

Richards moved on to unscripted TV in 2010 when she snagged a spot on The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills.

She is the only founding member of the series who is still on it to this day.

After much speculation about her marriage on the show, it came to light that she separated from her husband of more than 26 years in 2023.

"Honey, I'm home!"

Indeed, axe-wielding Jack Nicholson's classic quip is one of the biggest take-aways from Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's classic novel.

But there are plenty more, not least a memorable cameo from previously unknown British twin sisters Lisa and Louise Burns as the doomed Grady twins.

It is Danny Torrance, played by Danny Lloyd - another of the films's young stars - who encounters the girls while cruising the garishly carpeted corridors of the deserted Overlook Hotel on his trike.

Born with psychic powers and an ability to conjure prophetic visions of past and future events, Danny already knows the girls were axed to death by their caretaker father in the same hotel little more than a year earlier.

They terrify little Danny when they chant, 'Come and play with us, Danny, forever, and ever, and ever,' in their English accents before the film flashes to their dead and bloody bodies.

The encounter remains one of the film's more defining moments, and would prove to be a career high for the Burns twins.

Both sisters relished their roles, but their dreams of becoming successful actresses were squashed when they were turned away by the prestigious acting academy, RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), in London.

Speaking to MailOnline in 2015, the sisters revealed how Nicholson, despite his maniacal performance and playboy reputation, acted as a father-figure.

Lisa, who is now a lawyer and Louise, a published scientist, also admitted they were surprised that they only got 30 seconds in the final cut of the movie, despite filming for so long on set.

'We did have another line which was cut from the movie, it was a nursery rhyme, it was a little bit like Mary had a Little Lamb,' said Lisa.

'We were on set a lot, and the great thing about that was that you got to really see how a movie is made.'

It's one of the best known roles in British horror, but playing Satan's spawn was as good as it got for Harvey Spencer Stephens.

Stephens was five-years old when he starred as devilish Damian Thorn alongside seasoned Hollywood legends Gregory Peck and Lee Remick.

Naturally blond, he was required to dye his hair in keeping with Damian's dark, foreboding appearance after being cast by the film's director, Richard Donner.

The role won him a Golden Globe nomination, but it would be the London-born actor's only screen credit of note.

Now 53 and a father-of-two, Stephens narrowly avoided jail after punching two cyclists during a road rage attack in 2017.

He was driving an Audi RS6 when he lost his temper, jumped out of his car and thumped the two cyclists, smashing one of their helmets.

Curiously, Stephens, who admitted two offences of assault causing actual bodily harm and one of criminal damage, learned his fate on Friday 13 - a date synonymous with superstition and bad luck.

He received a 12-month jail term suspended for two years.

It spawned a hugely successful franchise and made malevolent doll Chucky a household name, but it also launched the career of young actor Alex Stewart.

The American star was six-years old when he won the role of Andy Barclay, a character he would revisit in Child's Play 2 and the less successful spin-offs Curse of Chucky and Cult Of Chucky.

Now 43, New Jersey born Stewart is still best known for his pivotal role in the franchise.

'It was an incredibly fun and exciting experience for me at six years old,' he told Indie Mac User.

'I got to leave school for a couple months and go work with a super cool electrical puppet in Chicago and LA.

'The content didn't matter much to me, in terms of scaring me. I was a bright kid... And nothing about being on that set was scary.'

Off-camera the actor has also worked in production, with various credits as sound designer, composer, writer and sound editor on numerous low budget films.

Redrum!

We all know what it spells backwards, many of us thanks to Danny Torrance and his prophetic, supernatural powers in The Shining.

While the film became an instant classic, the eight-year old actor responsible for playing him soon turned his back on the acting industry.

The former actor worked on a farm to pay his tuition fees at university before working as a biology professor at a community college in Kentucky.

Now 52-yeards old and a father-of-four, Lloyd still has fond memories of his time on set with co-stars jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and director Stanley Kubrick.

'Stanley was great. I remember him playing ball with me, playing catch, stuff like that,' he told The Guardian in 2017.

'He was a big guy with a beard, but I don't remember ever being scared of him or intimidated or anything.'

But he admits he was disappointed after he was promised Danny's famous trike by a crew-member, who offered to send it to him.

'I was waiting and waiting for it,' he recalled. 'But it never came.'

Torrance was resurrected for 2019 film Doctor Sleep, with Ewan McGregor stepping in to play an adult version of the character.