Hollywood won’t admit it, but most modern horror films owe a debt to Scooby Doo. The teenage leads (typically a nerd, a stoner and a damsel in distress) always know best, and every person in a position of power, from the parents to the Sheriff, is unhelpful, corrupt or thoroughly evil, and probably has a dark secret.

Young folks, these pictures tell us, are the only ones that can save the world from the terrible mistakes of hypocritical adults. That’s because they possess “It”, the secret, mystical power that makes them the fount of all wisdom as well as our best hope for redeeming society from the actions of Old Farts that are either sincere-but-useless or wicked.

It’s a clever inversion of the Andy Hardy character, who learned life-lessons from his father, a small-town judge, before entering the Big Bad World. Here, the authorities are powerless to stop a villain who appears where and when he damn well pleases (to hell with logic), but The Kids have no trouble bringing him down and revealing his identity.

If the following films prove anything, it’s that there’s no shortage of movies where the bad guys would’ve gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids.