10 Slasher Horror Movie Openings That Surprised Us All
2. Scream
Wes Craven's Scream wasn't the first movie to kill off its headline act early on, but it was a true game-changer in how it offed Drew Barrymore's Casey Becker in the opening moments of what would go onto become a four-movie (and counting) franchise.
For variation, your writer would love to give Scream a day off here, but it's impossible to ignore those opening moments of Craven's 1996 picture when looking at the most surprising, effectual slasher movie openings.
The actual act of Casey's death was a chilling one, with her played like a fiddle in a terrifying game of cat and mouse before being carved up and hanged from a tree. But the most jarring part of this sequence, is that it's Drew Barrymore's character who fell afoul of Ghostface here.
Barrymore had been front-and-centre of the promotional push for Scream, with Dimension Films' marketing campaign being so heavily built around Drew as Scream's A-list star.
Not just did this serve as a genuine shocker at the time of its release, the death of Casey Becker also firmly cemented that all bets were off with Scream; a theme that would be followed throughout this film and the subsequent franchise entries that followed.