10 Horror TV Shows That Wasted Incredible Characters

Fast approaching its fourth season, the Duffer brothers' retro horror hit Stranger Things has spent the last few years offering viewers an '80s escapism quite unlike anything else on television.

In the fictional town of Hawkins, strange and supernatural things happen to a select group of kids, teens and adults, aided by a psychokinetic girl named Eleven. While all manner of, quite frankly, horrifying monsters have found their way from the Upside Down (a parallel hell dimension bordering ours), the real driving power behind the show is the human characters.

Season two brought us a classic '80s teen villain in the form of Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), a badass with a muscle car and a violent temper. However, as his character intervenes throughout the main arc, we learn that his aggressive nature stems from a turbulent home life, and the intrigue deepens.

Come season three however, when most of us were expecting the metaphorical fleshing out of Billy's character, he was instead literally fleshed out, operating as a convenient meat-suit for Upside Down big bad, The Mind Flayer. Billy thus becomes little more than a plot device throughout, despite being one of the most interesting, albeit twisted, characters on the show. This season-long possession wastes the character's potential, not only for a deep dive into his personality and past, but also a prospective future, as he is killed off in a last-minute sacrifice.