10 More Horror Movies That Cleverly START With Huge Twists

2. Halloween (1978)

Second perhaps only to Psycho in the game-changing early twist stakes, we have John Carpenter's original 1978 Halloween, which unforgettably begins with the stabbing murder of Judith Myers (Sandy Johnson) at the hands of her brother Michael.

The chilling sequence, unfolding as a POV shot, doesn't give us a glimpse of Michael at all until the very end, as we're simply forced to watch him stalk and kill his sister in their family home.

Only once the deed is done do we cut to Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) as he removes Michael's mask, revealing him to be a mere young boy.

To have such a brutal murder be carried out by such an innocent-looking child kicked off Carpenter's seminal slasher film in immediately traumatic fashion, ingeniously toying with audience expectations of who can and can't be a horror movie villain.

As origin stories for slasher antagonists go, there's arguably none better or more eerily shocking.