10 Scariest Opening Sci-Fi Movie Scenes Ever

John Carpenter has made no secret of his love for the Nigel Kneale scientist character Quatermass and his exploits, often editing his own films under the psuedonymn John Quatermass. Carpenter even solicited a script from Kneale for Halloween III: Season of the Witch, though little of his product ever made it to screen (the atmosphere and plot, however, aren't that far a cry from Quatermass 2).

Quatermass and the Pit, the best of the films, is a bit of a slow burn sci-fi, but its first encounter with the antagonists is not without tension. While expanding a metro line, workers uncover what appears to be a martian UFO. A hole opens in the ship, revealing three-legged insectoid beasts.

There are plenty of more interesting conflicts at the heart of Quatermass, namely science vs. military reaction to invasion, but once the threat is made clear, the terror is there. The beasts are at least 5 million years old and very, very dead. They are, in fact, ghosts of martian intent on colonizing Earth with their spirits in our bodies.

It's much more of a heady fear than anything else on this list, but the implications - including a kind of racial purge and propoganda - is infinitely more terrifying.