10 Amazing Scenes In The Halloween Franchise

10. The Reveal - Halloween (1978)

There's no better or more suitable way to start this list than with the scene that started it all.

It is Halloween night,1963, and we begin a silent tracking shot around a quaint suburban home as we watch a young couple cavort. The silence is broken by a jarring musical sting that seagues into an eerily unsettling piano score. A hand pulls a knife from a drawer finally revealing that this is someone's point-of-view and that the couple upstairs are in danger. The scene expertly gives us all the information we need to know without a single spoken line of dialogue.

Heading upstairs, the same hand reaches for a mask laying on the floor. With it over camera, the shot is limited to two small eye holes as the vision of a topless, unaware young woman comes into view. Suddenly we find ourselves stabbing the young beauty until she lays lifeless on the floor. Running back down the stairs and out the front door headlights fill the lens. Only after this three and a half minute shot is the mask torn away and we are revealed to be an angelic looking child dressed in a clown costume.

This opening scene is a masterclass in tension, but it is the final shot that offers the most truly shocking moment of all. Until this, the viewer has been completely unaware that they are seeing a young child's actions. We are left speechless as the music crescendos and the screen cuts to black. It is truly a masterful way to begin a film and shows off Carpenter's ingenuity with the limited budget.