10 Movie Sequels That Started In Surprising Ways
Those films that took audiences aback with their opening sequences.
The world of cinema is one full of the sort of surprises and shocks that, when done well, can rarely be matched.
Part of the charm of movies is in how they can catch you off-guard, can make you raise an eyebrow, or can simply rock you to your core with a certain revelation. For some special films, though, they're able to generate this sort of reaction just from their opening few moments - and it's on those pictures that the attention is on here.
For these offerings, their first few minutes flip expectations, throw up plentiful questions, and at times can leave you picking your jaw up off the floor from what you've just seen play out. Of course, such surprises can be welcome, smart ones, while others maybe don't quite hit home like a filmmaker intended. Regardless, such moments deviate from the supposed norm or anticipated formula of a feature.
Sometimes these surprises can be the shock demise of a character, other times the surprise may be an aesthetic or tonal one, but either way, the following ten films all took audiences aback with their openings upon a first watch.
10. Jaws: The Revenge
Even as a staunch fan of all four Jaws pictures, your writer here can't honestly claim that Jaws: The Revenge is anything but a dumpster fire of a movie. Still, one thing the film does have going for it, is a rather shocking opening few moments.
With Brody siblings Michael and Sean having taken centre-stage in the Roy Scheider-less Jaws 3-D in 1983, it was only natural to presume that the series would continue to spotlight these brothers as yet another toothy threat reared its head in the fourth Jaws offering.
While Michael and Sean were indeed featured in Jaws: The Revenge, it was only a fleeting appearance for poor Sean. Played by future Doogie Howser, M.D. regular Mitchell Anderson, the younger Brody bro was killed in The Revenge's opening minutes.
Having followed in the footsteps of his father Martin - who had died off-screen due to a heart attack - Sean is a man of the law by the time of Jaws: The Revenge. Sent to clear a log that's blocking a buoy, Anderson's character has his arm bitten off by a great white shark, before this apex predator then drags the screaming Sean to his watery demise.
From here, The Revenge sends Brody family matriarch Ellen to stay with Michael in Barbados... where they are inexplicably stalked by a great white with a personal grudge against the Brody clan.