10 Most Intense Movie Openings Ever
3. 28 Weeks Later
Expectations were pretty low for this sequel to 28 Days Later, given that neither original director Danny Boyle nor any prior cast members opted to return.
But to his enormous credit, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo went out of his way to prove his doubters wrong with one of the most queasily anxiety-inducing opening scenes in movie history.
28 Weeks Later kicks off with Rage virus survivor Don (Robert Carlyle) and wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) holed up in a cottage with fellow survivors on the outskirts of London.
Their tranquil existence is upended, however, with the arrival of a Rage-infected horde, who have followed a terrified boy to their hideout.
The infected kill most of the survivors, and when Don begs Alice to leave the boy so they can both escape, she refuses.
Don, however, decides to flee for the sake of his own survival, leaving his wife and the boy to seemingly be torn apart by the Rage-infected.
Don scarpers to a nearby speedboat and makes an escape from the pursuing infected by the skin of his teeth.
Between Fresnadillo's intense, close-up camerawork, the sheer number of the infected, the nerve-shredding invocation of John Murphy's iconic score, and the disturbing-yet-realistic nature of Don abandoning his wife, this is one of those scenes you need a rightful breather after watching.