Bill Skarsgård's first Pennywise the clown audition still leaves people terrified

It might have been nearly eight years since it hit cinemas, but It left quite the lasting impression on the world of horror and Halloween costumes,

And part of that is in thanks to Bill Skarsgård's performance as the creepy as f**k Pennywise.

But just when you thought that was scary enough, his audition isn’t any more comforting. The tape of him having an early crack at the clown role still leaves people terrified now.

Yep, it’s somehow even worse without the makeup, teeth and costume – that makes this year’s Halloween fashion choice much easier anyway.

The 2017 horror film was a real breakthrough role for the Swedish actor (who turns 35 on Saturday, 9 August), with the casting directors clearly spotting his Pennywise potential in the now historic audition tape.

With the clown creeping into many of our nightmares, It grossed over $704 million worldwide and became the highest-grossing horror film of all time.

The flick remains on a respectable 85 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes nowadays and is a favourite horror of many.

It was so good that even after an underwhelming sequel, a prequel series called Welcome to Derry is set to air on HBO Max in October - and it has been confirmed that Skarsgård will be donning the clown makeup once again, as well as executive producing the series too.

And his audition tape, which shows the moment he lures poor Georgie to a drain before biting his arm off and dragging him to his death, shows it truly wasn't just the clown makeup that was scary, but Skarsgård's top-tier acting.

Apparently, he understood the assignment so well that during filming, he left a bunch of kids traumatised.

No thanks (Warner Bros.)

Speaking to Movie Pilot back in 2017, he said: "At one point, they set up this entire scene, and these kids come in, and none of them have seen me yet.

"Their parents have brought them in, these little extras, right? And then I come out as Pennywise, and these kids - young, normal kids - I saw the reaction that they had.

"Some of them were really intrigued, but some couldn't look at me, and some were shaking.

"This one kid started crying. He started to cry, and the director yelled, 'Action!'

"And when they say 'action,' I am completely in character. So some of these kids got terrified and started to cry in the middle of the take, and then I realised, 'Holy s***. What am I doing? What is this? This is horrible.'"