20 Horror Movie Openings That Are Practically Perfect

2. Scream - The Death Of Casey

The Scream franchise has always been great with its opening scenes, yet nothing has quite topped the very beginning of the series. That's no surprise, for this is the kind-of gold that's hard to outdo. 

In this beginning, Ghostface phones and torments high school student Casey (Drew Barrymore), forcing her to answer trivia questions about horror movies. If she gets a question wrong, she and her boyfriend (who's tied up outside) will be killed. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment she forgets that Jason Vorhees isn't the killer in the original Friday the 13th, leading to both her and her boyfriend Steve being gruesomely murdered. Her parents find her disembowelled corpse hanging from a tree. 

This is one of those scenes that simply couldn't be better. It sums up everyone we love about Scream by blending dark comedy, witty meta dialogue, gnarly gore and bone-chilling suspense into one delicious package, all of which is further enhanced by Wes Craven's tripwire-tense direction and a fantastic performance from Drew Barrymore, who single-handedly made Casey one of the all-time great horror characters to only appear in one scene. It was also an absolute masterstroke to kill off the biggest name in the cast after just one scene. 

It's another horror opener that could be a brilliant, award-winning short film all on its own, although you wouldn't want to miss the rest of what is a really great movie.