10 Horror Movies That Open With One Amazing Kill

Although it's important for a film to take its time with setting up the story and characters, the horror genre tends to take a different approach. To give viewers a taste of what's to come, they might kick things off with a shocking kill.

This strategy doesn't always pay off, since it's hard to get emotionally invested in a victim who was only introduced moments earlier. But if the scene is structured well and the acting is stellar, executing someone in the first few minutes is a great way to grab viewers' attention straight away.

Sometimes, the first victim is set up as the protagonist, so it looks like they'll survive to the end. When they don't make it through the first act, though, it can be pretty shocking.

When it comes to slashers, starting with a violent murder is the quickest way to introduce the antagonist in dramatic fashion. The opening death can hint at the villain's motive or modus operandi, intriguing the audience from the get-go while preserving the mystery.

Even though certain horrors like to save their biggest kills for later, these entries went all out in the beginning.

In David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future, humanity has entered a new stage of evolution, causing people to undergo drastic physical mutations. While much of society embraces transhumanism, others think otherwise.

And nothing demonstrates the disdain certain people have over these biological developments than the prologue. The dystopian drama begins with a mutated boy called Brecken scavenging plastics from the beach before returning to his house and devouring them. 

Unable to satiate his unique hunger pangs, Brecken takes bites out of a plastic bin, while his repulsed mother looks on. Refusing to accept what her son has become, the mother places a pillow over Brecken's face while he sleeps, smothering him to death.

The kill itself isn't elaborate like most entries on this list, but the circumstances are deeply tragic. Based on the twisted premise and Cronenberg's track record, viewers should've expected Crimes of the Future to be difficult to sit through. 

With that said, nobody was ready for this. As such, it isn't surprising at all to learn audience members walked out within a matter of minutes when the dark sci-fi debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.