10 Movies That Cleverly START With Huge Twists
8. Alien
Ridley Scott's iconic 1979 sci-fi horror begins with the crew of the Nostromo investigating a distress signal emanating from a nearby moon. During this little side quest, one of the crew members, Kane, is attacked by a mysterious alien creature that attaches itself to his face and will not let go.
It's a simple and slow setup to the movie that nonetheless builds up heaps of tension, because while the title "Alien" tells you that Kane probably won't be the last person to have an encounter, it's not clear where the next threat will come from, creating a feeling of unease that is only heightened when Kane seems to make a full recovery.
But then: bam. Out of nowhere, an alien bursts out of his chest and runs off into the ship, destroying the calm of the dinner table scene like a bullet through glass.
Easily one of the most shocking twists of all time, Kane's horrific demise instantly turned the movie into a fight for survival against an unstoppable and unpredictable enemy, while the deaths of actors like John Hurt, Tom Skerritt and Harry Dean Stanton - who were all big names at the time - added another twisty layer to proceedings, in that nobody expected the then-unknown Sigourney Weaver to be the main star of the film.
While Scott doesn't always churn out gold, Alien is a brilliant example of how to lull audiences into a false sense of security, before pulling the rug out from under them in a deeply disturbing fashion.