10 Opening Movie Scenes Which Immediately Stunned Audiences
2. Scream - Casey Becker Gets A Mysterious Phone Call
When it comes to completely swerving audiences in the very first scene of a movie, Scream (1996) is undoubtedly the cinematic standard bearer.
Fans were understandably curious to see what would happen to superstar Drew Barrymore's character of Casey Becker as soon as we were introduced to her in the film's opening. As it goes, her world was very quickly turned upside down thanks to an insidious phone call from an unknown individual.
After humouring the caller for a while, the conversation becomes gradually more frightening until the voice reveals her boyfriend Steve is being held hostage and orders her to answer a series of questions. Only, when she gets one wrong, Steve is suddenly murdered.
If this alarming early death wasn't enough for those watching, director Wes Craven then dialled things up a notch by having his top billed actor viciously stabbed to death by a masked figure before her corpse was discovered hanging from a tree by her parents.
This breathtaking opening spectacularly signalled that not a single character in this slasher cult classic was safe and few films to date have managed to stun audiences quite so thoroughly in the years since Becker picked up that dreaded phone.