10 Best Horror Movie Opening Scenes Of The 2000s

The film that started it all: James Wan’s Saw was the cornerstone feature of the 2000s’ torture porn obsession, demonstrating what could be done with just a few people, a puzzle, and their bloody body parts, in a film that was never surpassed by any of its sequels, competitors, or copycats. 

Saw revolves around the mysterious Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell), who creates puzzles and traps designed to capture and test his victims, forcing them to face their faults and endure great pain and mutilation to survive. And it opens with a bathroom scene…

Jigsaw’s latest victims, Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Gordon Lawrence (Cary Elwes), meet when they awaken in a dilapidated bathroom at the beginning of the film, finding themselves chained to the piping with only a rusty hacksaw each to work with. A dead man with a gun lies in the space between them, and they each have a tape giving them different instructions for what to do.

Each moment of the scene is an exploration into the unknown. As viewers, we find ourselves as clueless as the victims, and are with them in the darkness, then the sodium light, struggling to piece things together. And we feel the full force of the shock and terror at what they must do before them, realising all too soon that if either of these men wants to get out alive, they’re going to have to part with a limb.