10 Slasher Horror Movie Openings That Surprised Us All

6. Last Girl Standing

Carol Kane fails to check the children in time in When A Stranger Calls
Blue Goggles Films

Going into Last Girl Standing cold, one would likely presume the picture was your regular slasher movie based around some young woman being forever pursued by a nefarious presence.

While that is technically correct, the difference here is that the torment suffered by Akasha Villalobos' Camryn is the mental fallout of having already dealt with your standard masked killer.

Rather than follow the usual slasher tropes, Benjamin R. Moody's film surprisingly gets all of that action out of the way during Last Girl Standing's opening scene.

There, we're thrown straight into things as Camryn finds herself fighting for her life against a mysterious killer who has already slaughtered her friends. Managing to escape this most harrowing of experiences, the more surprising element of Last Girl Standing is that the traditional slasher element is done and dusted in those first five minutes.

From there, the picture jumps forward to shine a spotlight on how one deals with surviving such an ordeal. We find a Camryn who lives a soulless life of isolation that sees her float from her one-bedroom apartment to her mundane job at a local laundromat - with every dark shadow, every stranger, every noise a stark reminder of what she's been through, as Last Girl Standing becomes a character study of sorts.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.