10 Best Horror Movie Opening Scenes Of The 2000s

Nobody ever accused Steve Beck’s Ghost Ship of being a good film, but few can deny it has one of the best horror movie openings of the 2000s and beyond.

It begins on classic vibes, with pink rom-com font titles, on board the cruise ship Antonia Graza in 1962 during a cocktail party, where a singer and her band perform “Senza Fine”, and the sun sets on the horizon. All is delightful until a taut steel cable rips through the dancers, bisecting, dissecting, and dismembering all of the guests in one fell swoop. After a moment’s shock holds everyone in place, they literally fall, slip, slide, and slop to pieces, leaving only the young girl Katie Harwood (Emily Browning) alive and screaming.

We don’t have time to get to know any characters - and good thing, too - but Beck manages to evoke such a strong sense of time, place, and bonhomie that when disaster strikes, we are left agog. Rarely, if ever, has the opening scene to a film gone so hard, or so bloody, and while the rest of the movie, whose plot uncovers the reason for the killings and establishes this as the titular ghost ship, fails to live up to this promise, there is no denying its awesome power.