20 Best Performances In Horror Movies

Before Halloween and Friday the 13th took the world by storm, and long after the likes of Psycho and Peeping Tom, there was Tobe Hooper's relentlessly horrifying Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which kickstarted the modern slasher craze.

Between the petrifying musical score and Gunnar Hansen's monstrous turn as Leatherface, the true standout of the movie is Marilyn Burns, who played Sally Hardesty, one of the genre's original final girls.

In the role, Burns is said to have suffered through an increasingly difficult shoot, which left her injured, fatigued and coated in fake blood. But, boy, was it worth it, because her performance as the film's unfortunate protagonist is viscerally intense and unflinching.

She's tortured, traumatised, but strong and fighting, and Burns' ability to balance Sally's desperation, survival instincts and emotional turmoil remains one of the finest achievements in the slasher movie genre, setting the near-unrivalled blueprint for every slasher heroine to come.