Memorable Horror Movie Opening Scenes

The best movies often begin with a bang, and these ten horror films master the art of hooking viewers from the opening minutes like no other.

In my opinion, one of the best indicators of a great horror film is its opening scene. Of course, some of the best horror films may have a lackluster opening, and some not-so-great films may have an amazing opening. Whatever the case, I know that opening scenes in horror films are pretty important, so today, in no particular order, let’s look at just some of the most memorable openings. 

1. The Ring (2002)

This American remake of the Japanese horror film Ringu, The Ring starts with teenage girls Katie (Amber Tamblyn ) and Becca (Rachael Bella ) talking about a scary video that has been circulating. One of the girls, Katie, admits to having watched the video a week prior and begins to panic when Becca tells her that after a week, those who have watched the video end up dead. In true horror movie fashion, Katie is left alone when strange things begin to happen, such as the TV turning itself on and water mysteriously leaking all over the floor. Katie sees the video on the television screen and is killed by an unseen figure. 

What I love about this opening is that there is fear and suspense but not a lot of gore. It shows that you can have a terrifying horror film without overdoing it in the film’s opening.  

2. House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

The movie starts with an ad for Captain Spaulding’s Museum of Monsters and Madmen. We then meet the infamous Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), dressed as a clown. A group of masked men burst into the gas station/museum, planning to rob Spaulding. What they don’t expect is for the clown to fight back. After being distracted by another guy in a mask (one presumably working for Spaulding), the clown takes the opportunity to shoot and kill the robbers. 

This opening is a great mix of humor and horror. We see just how crazy our beloved Captain Spaulding is and get a sense that we are in for quite a trip with this film. The movie gets even better after this amazing opening, and while I have not seen it many times, I plan to watch it again after just watching that opening scene!

3. Final Destination 2 (2003)

While all of the opening scenes for Final Destination films are memorable, a hallmark of the franchise, I think it is fair to assume that the second movie has the most memorable opening scene—at least the one that leaves the most lasting impression and effectively scarred all of us.

We see a group of friends, led by the main character Kimberly (A.J. Cook), who are off on a road trip for spring break. While driving on the freeway, Kimberly has a premonition of a horrible car pile-up, starting with the dreaded log truck. It is a chain reaction, and we see many of the main cast for this film die horrific deaths. When Kimberly comes to, she wants to try to prevent the pileup from happening, so she stalls her car on the entrance ramp and tries to warn drivers behind her. While she can save some of the people from dying, the car crash still happens, killing many other passengers on the road.

This movie scene alone traumatized an entire generation and made us not want to drive behind a log truck on the freeway. If you fear getting into a car accident or have anxiety about driving on the freeway, maybe skip this scene for good measure.  

4. Halloween (1978)

While there are other Halloween films with more gruesome openings, there is something so chilling about the original that leaves an impression. 

In this opening scene, we watch from the unknown person’s pov as they walk towards a house. This figure is shown to be seemingly stalking a teenage couple. We quickly see this figure is a young child based on the small hand we see, and the child puts on a clown mask. The boy, whose name we learn is Michael, stabs the teenage girl to death. After murdering the girl, the parents of the boy meet him outside of the house with the weapon (knife) used to murder the girl and unmask the boy, revealing a little boy with a blank look on his face. 

This is a horror opening that, truth be told, I did not come to appreciate until I fully became an adult. Yes, the more recent films of the franchise show the ruthlessness of Michael Myers… but there is something so haunting about watching a little boy murder a teenage girl for no reason. This opening scene will definitely leave an impression.  

5. A Quiet Place (2018)

The movie starts with a family in a dark and quiet store, looking around for the needed supplies. Everyone is making a huge effort to stay quiet, although the youngest boy, Beau (Cade Woodward), finds a toy space shuttle. The boy wants to keep the toy, but his father, Lee (John Krasinski), tells him the toy is too loud. 

After the rest of the family has already walked out of the store, Beau’s older sister, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), gives the toy back to her brother and grabs the batteries. As the family is walking home, Beau begins to play with the noisy toy. Lee runs in an attempt to grab his son while the rest of the family watches in horror and struggles to stay silent. Right before Lee gets to his son, Beau is killed by one of the creatures that has taken over.

When I first saw this film, I had no idea what to expect, but seeing the scene alone made me gasp. It definitely set the tone for the remainder of the film and showed to anyone who doubted Krasinski’s horror-creating talents that he could make a horror film that left viewers shocked.  

6. When a Stranger Calls (1979)

We see a young girl, Jill Johnson (Carol Kane), doing her homework. She begins to get weird phone calls. The caller doesn’t say much at first, but the calls quickly become more and more unnerving as the caller asks, “Have you checked the children?” referring to the children she is babysitting, who are upstairs in their bedroom sleeping. 

The anonymous caller freaks out Jill, who believes someone in the neighborhood is watching her through a window. She called the police, who traced the phone call. To her horror, Jill discovers the call is coming from inside the house. 

The first twenty minutes of this chilling film could easily be an effective short film. It is based on the famous urban legend of a girl who gets a threatening phone call, only to discover it’s coming from inside the house. It’s a great film and well worth checking out (there was also a 2006 remake), but you should at least watch this terrifying opening sequence (watch part one and part two now). 

7. Urban Legend (1998)

Urban Legend begins with a young woman, Michelle (Natasha Gregson Wagner), driving alone in the rain. She notices she is running low on gas, so she stops at a station in the middle of nowhere. Michelle feels uneasy about the station worker (Brad Dourif) because of how sketchy he is acting. His stutter does not help with the communication barrier between the two. The man comes outside after trying to use the woman’s card inside to pay for her gas and explains that the credit card company is on the phone.

Michelle comes inside, picks up the phone, and, to her horror, quickly learns that there is no one on the phone. The man frantically locks the door, making Michelle (as well as the audience) believe that this sketchy guy is trying to abduct her. She escapes the man and hurries to her car, but the man is still persistent in trying to stop her. Still, she drives away in a rush. The worker, who again has struggled to get his message across due to his stutter, finally shouts his terrifying warning:  “Someone’s in the backseat!”

Unfortunately, Michelle discovers this on her own too late and sees the ax-wielding hooded figure from her rearview mirror right before they decapitate her.

This is a film opening I forgot about until I re-watched this movie a few years ago. It sets the tone for the rest of the film, and Brad Dourif (AKA the voice of Chucky) is fantastic at playing the unsettling worker who turns out to be trying to save Michelle. Unfortunately, I think that in the world we live in now, many women would react the same way as Michelle, assuming that the man working at the station was the one to be wary of.

8. Ghost Ship (2002)

The opening of this film, easily one of the best in horror history, starts a bit deceiving. 

We see passengers on a ship dancing along to some nice live music. Even the title card and letters on the screen for the names are pink and cursive, giving off a nice, melancholic-type vibe. There is a young girl who seems to be the only child on the ship, sitting alone and bored. The ship’s captain comes over and asks her to dance. The two join everyone else on the dance floor. 

The tone for this scene changes quickly when we see a hand raise a lever that tightens a metal cable. The cable snaps and whips across the ship… slicing through everyone and everything in its path. For a couple of seconds, everything is quiet; no one is moving, there is no music, and we don’t know how badly the cable hurt the passengers. The passengers start to split in half, and blood begins to pool around all of the bodies. The little girl, who was holding onto the captain in fear, watches in horror as his head that was sliced through falls off. She screams in horror, and since she is so short, she is able to escape the horrific massacre.

It’s hard not to feel sad for the passengers. Some were trying to hold onto each other so they would not split apart, and some were even trying to connect their bodies back together. 

I will be honest with you; this is the best scene in the film. Sadly, the rest of the film cannot live up to the promise of this truly memorable beginning. This is one of my all-time favorite horror movie openings. Even if you don’t watch the entire film, you should watch the opening scene.

9. Scream (1996)

You didn’t really think I would talk about some of the most memorable horror movie openings and forget Scream, did you?

In the iconic opening scene, we see teenage girl Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) home alone.  She gets anonymous calls from a stranger and, at first, believes it to be a harmless guy flirting with her.  The guy keeps asking Casey to give her his name, and when she asks why he wants to know, he says that he “wants to know who he’s looking at.”  The caller becomes more threatening on the phone, freaking Casey out.  She even tries to threaten the caller and says that her boyfriend will protect her, but to her dismay, she sees that the caller has tied up her boyfriend on the back porch.

In order to save him, she must answer horror movie trivia questions correctly. After accidentally answering one question wrong, she sees that her boyfriend is killed. The masked killer breaks inside the house, and Casey arms herself with a knife and attempts to hide from the killer outside.  Just as her parents are driving up to the house, the killer sees Casey through a window and attacks her. Casey does her best to fight back and even attempts to call out to her parents for help.

Once her parents get into the house, they see the destruction caused by the masked killer and begin to look for their daughter frantically. Casey’s mother picks up the phone to call the police but hears Casey on the other line, breathing uneasily after being attacked. As the mother opens the door to attempt to go to a neighbor’s house, she screams in horror as she sees a now lifeless Casey hanging from a tree, gutted.

I mean… talk about a brutal death, right?  The Ghostface killers have never been shy when it comes to killing their victims in the worst ways possible, and this very first scene is a testament to that. This is another scene that I did not fully comprehend until I was an adult, and when I realized just how horrific Casey’s death was, I realized that even humans can do monstrous things.  

Obviously, there are hundreds of horror films with memorable opening scenes that were not covered in this article. What are some horror movie opening scenes that left an impression on you?