10 More Scariest Horror Movie Opening Credits
6. Martyrs (2008)
One of the most wretched movies of the modern age, Pascal Laugier's French-language psychological horror Martyrs opens with a child (Jessie Pham, as Lucie) fleeing from abuse in her underwear, bloodied, injured, and screaming. This segues into the credits, in which a reporter tells of how she was held captive in a local building, while exploring the building, detailing the torture and misery Lucie experienced during a prolonged period, before transitioning to her life in care.
This sequence is as scary for what it doesn't show as what it does, leaving much of the horror up to our imaginations, but coaching us along with small details and sounds that don't always jive with the images onscreen. What follows ought to be an optimistic or upbeat sequence showing Lucie recovering and making a close new friend in the children's home, but the style of the footage - with burnt edges and a large, encroaching darkness ringing the images - intentionally juxtaposes this dewy-eyed ideal.
The final and prevailing image of it all, however, comes after a short sequence of the film in the orphanage, and features a ghoulish woman crouching on the end of Lucie's bed, whose hellish shriek leads into the picture's title card.