7. Marilyn Burns - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
If we're talking about sheer emotional power on film, we cannot overlook Tobe Hooper's 1974 masterpiece. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre may very well be the single greatest horror film ever made, and its overwhelming intensity is not down to onscreen violence and gore, of which there is comparatively little. The real source of its power is the performances, and Marilyn Burns tends to be the unsung hero of the piece. The film plunges us into a waking nightmare which we experience from the perspective of Burns' hapless Sally. While her role came to provide the blueprint for the 'final girl' archetype which later became a staple of the slasher sub-genre, no horror movie since has brought such a raw, realistic representation of true terror to the screen. Given the film was shot under fraught conditions in oppressive heat with little rest for the cast or crew, it's perhaps no wonder that Burns appears genuinely on the brink of madness throughout the final act.