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This article examines how horror cinema constructs sacred and profane geographies through the lens of childhood temporal consciousness and supernatural encounters. Drawing on both western Christian and Islamic traditions, we argue that children’s temporal innocence – their inability to fully conceptualize or measure time – functions not as a deficit but as a unique perceptual capacity. This innocence renders them attuned to alternative temporalities that modernity suppresses, positioning children as privileged witnesses to supernatural phenomena. Horror cinema leverages this perceptual gap to create ‘chronological trauma sites’ – spaces where modern time discipline breaks down and supernatural entities emerge. Our central argument is that horror films mobilize children’s disconnection from standardized temporal regimes to interrogate broader tensions between secular modernity and sacred worldviews. The article also examines how horror’s spatial imaginaries are shaped by differing religious conceptions of sacred geography. Western Christian traditions privilege linear temporalities and marked sacred sites, while Islamic cosmology recognizes the ongoing permeability between material and spiritual realms, especially in domestic and threshold spaces. These divergent frameworks produce distinct horror geographies that are revealed through architectural anomalies, disrupted routines and malfunctioning timekeeping devices. Finally, we reflect on how gender mediates access to these temporal geographies. By drawing together horror film theory, religious studies and cultural geography, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of how horror cinema imagines alternative temporalities and contested sacred spaces – spaces where the supernatural offers a counter-narrative to the hegemonic control of modern time.