WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Devil All The Time, available now on Netflix.

Ever since Bill Skarsgård portrayed Pennywise in the horror film series, IT, it was hard to imagine the actor himself ever playing another terrifying character with such chilling authenticity. However, as Willard Russell, a World War II soldier in Netflix’s The Devil All The Time, Skarsgård has confirmed that he doesn’t need a disguise or a supernatural story to petrify viewers, his acting prowess is enough.

In both IT films, Skarsgård is seen as Pennywise, a murderous, bloodthirsty clown that is actually an ancient shape-shifting evil that emerges from the sewers every 27 years in Derry, Maine, to prey on the town's children. From the manic gleam in his eyes, literally salivating at the prospect of chowing down on unsuspecting victims to the relish he felt as he feasted on his victims, Pennywise is a horrifying character that stays with viewers long after they are done watching the films.

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However, Pennywise is a supernatural creature that feasted on kids. It is, undoubtedly, scary, but it was the monster's nature, being the only lifestyle the character is shown to live. And that’s why, when it comes to deciding the scariest role Skarsgård has ever played, his part in The Devil All The Time takes the cake.

Willard is introduced as an honest young soldier fighting alongside his countrymen in World War II. He is haunted by the memories of the war where a fellow marine was suffering from wounds inflicted by the Japanese Army who had crucified him and left him to die a slow death. Unable to bear his screams of pain, Willard shot him in the head to put him out of his misery. But he was still a kind man who couldn’t look at the fallen soldier when he put the bullet in his head and was so affected by the incident that he even questioned his faith in God.

When he returns home, he meets Charlotte, a waitress in a diner, and instantly falls in love with her. From then, he works hard to win her affection. Eventually, they get married, have a son named Arvin, rent a house in Knockemstiff, Ohio and start saving money to buy it one day. His happy life as a family man pushes him to once again embrace his faith in God, so he puts up a cross in the backyard of his new home, where he goes with his son to pray.

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The Devil All The Time Willard Charlotte

However, when he comes home one day to find Charlotte unconscious and is later told that she has cancer that can’t be cured, he turns into a religious fanatic, a man beyond reason driven to somehow alter the inevitable. From a doting father who taught his son to stand up to bullies, he becomes a man so consumed by his grief that he is blind to the fact that Arvin is also losing his mother. Willard's real act of insanity and violence comes when he is convinced that if he sacrifices something in place of his wife, the Lord will spare her. He kills Arvin’s beloved dog, Jack, and proceeds to crucify him on the cross he built. Willard prays to God to take Jack and save Charlotte as a price for the sacrifice, but his wife still dies, pushing him to commit his last act of desperation -- killing himself.

Unlike Pennywise, Willard was a brave, caring man. He loved his family and wanted nothing but the best future for them. Seeing him breakdown into someone whose inhuman actions are purely governed by his pain couldn’t be more terrifying.

Starring Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Jason Clarke, Riley Keough, Robert Pattinson, Eliza Scanlen, Sebastian Stan, Harry Melling, Haley Bennett and Mia Wasikowska, The Devil All the Time is streaming on Netflix.

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