10 Opening Horror Movie Scenes That Changed Everything

Few genres of film like to catch an audience off-guard as much as the world of horror. So much of this murky corner of cinema is made up of shocks, surprises, and veering left with viewers were adamant things were heading right.

While such twists and game-changing revelations are more often than not held off until a movie's final act, that's not always necessarily the case. In some instances, horror films have instead used their opening moments to shake things up and make an immediate impact on their audience. And it's those pictures which are in the spotlight here.

Of course, by the very nature of the title of this list, there are several sequels featured here. After all, sequels often pick up the action after certain things have already been established, in turn meaning that there is plenty of potential to change "everything" that has previously been put in place.

With that in mind, then, here are ten horror movie openings that changed the game - either in terms of their own film, their own franchise, or even the wider genre as a whole.

When the Halloween franchise has been at its best, it's usually been centred around Michael Myers vs. Laurie Strode.

In John Carpenter's original 1978 feature, in Rick Rosenthal's criminally underrated 1981 Halloween II, and in Steve Miner's energetic 1998 Halloween H20, we'd seen Michael stalking Jamie Lee Curtis' poor Laurie. Heck, even in Halloweens 4, 5, and The Curse of Michael Myers, it was the Shape targeting Jamie's daughter and grandson.

Despite Halloween H20 bringing fresh life to the franchise, that life was brutally extinguished with Halloween: Resurrection four years later. And while the forehead-slapping lasting memory of that 2002 picture is Busta Rhymes laying down some kung fu moves on Myers, the opening scene of Resurrection absolutely altered the entire franchise.

Of course, that opening saw Haddonfield's infamous Shape shockingly kill off the institutionalised Laurie, stabbing Strode and dropping her to her death from the top of Grace Andersen Sanitarium.

With that, one of the most iconic and popular protagonists in horror movie history was removed from the Halloween chessboard, as Resurrection instead focussed its action on placing some fame-hungry young adults in the Myers House for a reality TV-esque stream on Halloween night.

So bad was the response to Halloween: Resurrection, it brought the franchise to a crashing halt, before Rob Zombie rebooted the series in 2007.