The year was 1968 and a young man named George A. Romero had shot his first film, a horror movie that would change the world of cinema and not just horror cinema, at that. Night of the Living Dead (1968), would go on to become one of the most important and famous horror films of all time as it tackled not only survival horror but also very taboo and shocking topics like cannibalism and matricide.

Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding and hulking antagonist of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), was a gift given to horror fans by visionary filmmaker Tobe Hooper. The concept of a violent—often childlike in the original version— beast of a man who wears the faces of his victims’ grabbed audiences in the 1970s and is still a horror cultural icon today, synonymous with powerhouse slasher icons like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees.