50 God-Tier Acting Moments Buried in Bad Movies

When it comes to an actor's body of work, it's tempting to look to their best movies as the ultimate measure of their talent. That's fair enough, but what about their bad movies? 

Quite often, an equally great way to gauge an actor's gifts is to look at how well they do in a bad movie. If they can generate a strong acting turn from terrible material, then that really is a testament to their talent, and, believe it or not, this happens a lot more than one might expect. After all, here we have no less than 50 examples of this. 

None of the following movies were any good in the end - some of them are outright turkeys - but nonetheless, they pleasantly surprise audiences with moments of phenomenal acting lurking stealthily within, making viewers feel like scavengers finding a diamond in a landfill. In fact, some of these performances were among the most acclaimed by the actor in question, reaffirming the point made by Anton Ego in Pixar's modern classic Ratatouille: great art can come from anywhere. 

Kicking off with a widely maligned slasher sequel...

Halloween Ends pissed off a lot of fans by sidelining Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) and focusing instead on a new killer, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). That was more than understandable, but it's telling that none of the criticism ever focused on Campbell's performance. He did a bang-up job. 

This came through right from the film's opening, which was rightly highlighted by many critics as one of its best scenes. This opening serves as the origin story of Corey's villainy, as a little boy he's babysitting locks Corey in an attic as a prank, and he accidentally pushes the boy to his death when he bursts through the door. 

Following this, Corey is vilified by the town, but the audience knows it was a genuine accident, and thanks to Campbell's terrific portrayal of Corey's terror and guilt in this opening, Corey is an immediately sympathetic figure. This sympathy, of course, decreases throughout the movie as Corey morphs into the next Michael Myers, but it never entirely goes away, thus allowing Corey to be a more human and complicated villain than Myers has ever been. 

This opening was vital to Corey's journey throughout the film, and even though this sequel was a mess, none of that should be blamed on Rohan Campbell, who did the very best with what he was given.