10 Opening Horror Scenes NOTHING Like The Rest Of The Movie

3. The Happening

M. Night Shymalan has had his fair share of duds - nobody is going to deny that - but nothing has been on a par with The Happening. At almost any given point, this 2008 film teeters between a disaster of a disaster movie or one of the greatest unintentional comedies ever made.

But based on the first few minutes, The Happening seemed like it was going to be a hit. There, the picture begins with two women sitting on a bench in Central Park, when one of the ladies notices everyone nearby has stopped moving. With little warning, the woman's friend pulls out her hair clip and drives it into her neck.

As horrific as this moment is, it's not an isolated incident. Nearby, a construction foreman is joking with his buddies when he sees a co-worker plummeting off the roof, leaving him fatally wounded. While the foreman reports the accident, he notices another worker fall to his death. Then another. Then another. As he gazes up, he's horrified to see multiple employees voluntarily leaping off the building, committing an unexplained mass suicide. 

Though Shyamalan's work is infamous for its bland performances, the actors here do a superb job of eliciting abject terror in the face of an unknown danger. Too bad The Happening goes downhill immediately after.