9 Famous Horror Movie Monsters and the Faces Behind Them (5 of 5)

Pinhead — Doug Bradley (Hellraiser, 1987)

Pinhead’s unsettling design is both elegant, in a creepy way, and absolutely horrifying, like he’s some Resident Evil villain. Doug Bradley portrayed Pinhead throughout the majority of the franchise’s early run, a rarity in horror where roles frequently undergo recasting. He gave the character that calm, otherworldly presence that worsens it because he’s not driven by rage, lust, or pretty much any other emotion. Humans simply can’t grasp what’s going on inside that beautiful mind of his.

Pennywise — Bill Skarsgård (It, 2017)

And finally, we get to clown around a bit and look at Pennywise. He may look cheerful on the outside, but you just know it’s pure dread underneath. Bill Skarsgård stepped into the role of the cosmid death god and somehow made the character feel both cartoonish and genuinely threatening. Skarsgård has talked about practicing creepy facial expressions for years, and yeah, his Pennywise smile looks unreal. Off-screen, he’s just a normal guy with a relatively normal face, which makes it worse because it means the clown is just a charade.