8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
To be fair, infamous serial killer Ed Gein has been the source of numerous cinema savages, such as Psycho's Norman Bates and The Silence of the Lambs' Buffalo Bill, but no film so blatantly pilfers from Gein's life as Tobe Hooper's grisly horror masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Though the fact that Gein would dress up as his own mother was weird enough (and transgendism was paralleled in the later Texas Chainsaw massacre sequels), the prevailing attribute that ensures Leatherface is derived from Gein is the fact that Gein also made a mask out of human skin, as well as an entire body suit, in fact. Gein went even further than Leatherface did, yet the
slightly more restrained approach paid off dividends, as the film was a major success and spawned an execrable number of sequels, remakes and reboots (the most recent of which regrettably hit cinemas just last month).