10 Sci-Fi Movie Openings That Get Worse The More You Think About It
6. Total Recall
A film about memory, reality, and Arnie's pecs (which is what all of his films are about, to be fair), 1990's Total Recall opens in pretty grotesque fashion.
It opens on Schwarzenegger taking an innocuous stroll across Mars with his lady love (Rachel Ticotin). All is right with the world - that world being the red planet - until the ground gives way beneath the two lovebirds.
They fall into a ravine, rocks smashing against their space suits. Arnie's helmet bursts, causing his eyes and tongue to swell up due to the change in pressure. Just as the camera is about to be covered in his muscular brains, he wakes up. It was all a dream.
Or was it?
See, it's never entirely clear what's real and what's not throughout Total Recall. Arnie has had his memories messed with by the villainous Rekall corporation, so he doesn't know what's reality, what's a dream, what's a vision of things to come...
The film messes with your head brilliantly, leaving you second guessing everything right from the very start of the film. If Arnie's exploding eyes weren't frightening enough, the idea that everything is a dream should do the trick.