1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Apparently based upon the real life antics of Ed Gein, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre features by far and away, the scariest rednecks you could ever hope to meet. The story is simple, a bunch of young people are travelling to a graveyard where plots have been desecrated - potentially including their grandfather's grave. They end up farting about the local area and enter a house where very bad things happen to them. Will Sally, the lone survivor, escape the lunatic redneck clan? First of all, I cannot really think of a scarier redneck than Leatherface. His imposing bulk, revving chainsaw and mask made out of human skin is the stuff of pure nightmares. He is mute, which adds to the fright factor, and brutal - determined to get his prey as we can see from his hot pursuit of Sally. He is not the only scary redneck in his family - there is the weird hitchhiker at the beginning of the film who cuts his arm and gets thrown out of the van by the group - he happens to be Leatherface's crazy brother. There is also a creepy old, half dead grandfather who in his day was apparently the best killer in the slaughterhouse. But they are wee buns compared to Leatherface. The film is a stunning exercise in fear. Marilyn Burns who plays Sally must be commended for her terror-struck performance. Yes she screams a lot, but with Leatherface on her tail, do you blame her? He is the perfect redneck horror villain. It's a pity that subsequent sequels to TCM diluted a lot of the fear around Leatherface. In the original, he is a relentless killing machine and the image of Sally getting in the back of the truck, covered in blood and hysterically screaming while Leatherface starts waving the chainsaw around is burned forever into my mind's eye. Superlative redneck horror.