20 Great Horror Roles Ruined By Terrible Acting

When a group of child actors outdoes you, you know you've screwed up.

Well, that's precisely what happened with 1990's It miniseries. This consists of two episodes, with one covering the Losers Club as kids and the second covering them as adults. Even fans of the miniseries - a number that's getting smaller and smaller with each passing year due to how atrociously this thing has aged - have generally agreed that the first half holds up better than the second, largely due to part two's weak performances. 

While the young actors in the first half did a thoroughly commendable job, the same cannot be said for those who took over the roles in the second half. Virtually all of them were fairly wooden, especially Richard Thomas as lead character Bill Denbrough. As a result, it was difficult to get invested in these characters, and worse still, Tim Curry's terrifying Pennywise the Clown isn't as much in evidence in the second half. As such, they're left with the task of carrying the entire thing, which is a task they simply weren't up to. 

Retrospectively, it was the wrong time to attempt to adapt It as network restrictions at the time prevented them from fully realizing the terror and complexity of the novel like the later film duology did (or at least, the first one). Nevertheless, a stronger adult cast might've allowed this miniseries to be a more credible work, instead of something that's only remembered for Tim Curry's performance.