10 Movies That Peaked In Their Opening Scene

3. 28 Weeks Later

The Movie

With none of the principal cast returning and Danny Boyle passing directing duties off to the untested Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, it's fair to say that expectations weren't high for this belated sequel to Boyle's 2002 low-fi zombie classic.

So a pleasant surprise it was, then, when it turned out to be a chillingly bleak, character-driven gore-fest that didn't skimp on either palpable drama or gnarly thrills. It lacks the stripped-down purity of the original, but served as a worthy sequel all the same.

The Opening Scene

File this in the "opening scene is a short film" folder, because the first 11 minutes of 28 Weeks Later are more stomach-knottingly tense than anything else in either of the two movies.

Protagonist Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) are hiding out in a remote cottage when the Rage Virus breaks out, but their cover is blown when a young boy begs for shelter, bringing with him a horde of the infected.

In the sequence that follows, Don's fellow survivors are massacred, and he's also forced to abandon Alice to ensure his own survival, fleeing to a nearby boat while just scarcely escaping the horde.

Shot with inventive, claustrophobic tenacity by Fresnadillo and shrewdly reprising John Murphy's iconic score from the first movie, it's a gut-wrenching introduction that the rest of the film can't even begin to live up to.

The remainder of the movie may be a totally solid "zombie" film, but the opening scene is on a whole other level.