10 Scariest Opening Sci-Fi Movie Scenes Ever

It's argumentative about just where Frank Darabont's adaptation of Stephen King's novella falls genre-wise, but a solid one can be made that there are plenty of elements of science fiction incorporated in what is mostly an allegory for religious zealotry. After a jolting opening in which a tree crashes through the window of artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane), he's forced to go to the grocery store with his son and a contemptuous neighbour for supplies as a strange fog gathers over the lake. Within minutes of shopping, alarms ring and a man runs in the store in a panic, followed by a wave of the menacing fog.

Turns out there are creatures hidden through the fog - unspeakable, rarely fully revealed horrors that attack and brutally strip flesh, limbs and other appendages from the stranded gaggle of shoppers.

There's no official explanation for their appearance, and the ultimate conflict in the film is a showdown between blind faith and human logic, but one army officer does explain the beasts are interdimensional beings that escaped through a portal at a nearby army base.

More Lovecraftian terror than outright sci-fi, The Mist is a deeply cynical work, heightened by Darabont's handheld shooting style he incorporated from his previous work on The Wire.