4. Mad Max Inspired The Saw Movie
Movies sometimes draw their inspiration from the strangest of places - who would have thought, for instance, that Wes Craven's rape revenge shocker The Last House On The Left was based on highbrow art house classic The Virgin Spring, directed by cinema legend Ingmar Bergan? Mad Max left its own legacy as the movie to better when it came to car chases, but its influence on other filmmakers also shifted over from action to the horror genre. Fellow Australians Leigh Whannell and James Wan have gone on record saying that if it wasn't for a particular scene in the first Mad Max there wouldn't be a Saw franchise. The scene in question is probably obvious to anyone who has been both films - it comes at the end when Max gives Johnny the option of hacking off his leg with a saw or cutting through a chain instead. Whether or not inspiring the Saw franchise is necessarily a good thing is open to debate.