10 Opening Horror Movie Scenes That Changed Everything
8. Happy Death Day
Happy Death Day's opening nine minutes set the tale for something utterly unique in the horror genre. Well, unique if you discount the film's sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, that is.
Those nine minutes introduce us to our lead character, Tree Gelbman, a college student who wakes up in someone else's bed after a one-night stand. From there, Tree returns to her sorority house - mocking someone she'd previously hooked up with along the way - does her best to ignore her own birthday, is late for class, has it revealed to the audience that she's having an affair with her lecturer... and is then killed by a baby-masked killer.
While that in itself would usually be quite the shock, how Happy Death Day "changed everything" is that Tree immediately wakes up back in the bed of that aforementioned one-night stand. From there, this picture becomes very much the Groundhog Day of horror - all with a healthy dollop of humour throughout - as Gelbman gets killed time and time again, awakening on that same morning and doing her best not to get killed in the same ways as previously, while trying to work out who her killer is.