20 Horror Movie Openings That Are Practically Perfect

Lars von Trier's Antichrist, an art-house horror starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, is... it's not bad. It's visually stunning and both leads are excellent, although it is also self-indulgent and takes its sweet-ass time to tell a fairly simple story. The overall movie is a mixed bag, but the opening scene? That's a different matter altogether. 

The movie is divided (via title cards) into a prologue, four chapters and an epilogue. In this prologue, the two lead characters passionately make love and while they are distracted, their infant son falls to his death. If this prologue was released separately as a short film, it could easily get nominated for the Best Live-Action Short Oscar - that's just how great it is. 

It's a masterpiece of contrasts. The beautiful black-and-white cinematography and ethereal choral music clash hauntingly with the extreme tragedy of the child's death, and the prologue also establishes the juxtaposition between sexuality and violence that the rest of the story hammers home to occasionally grating effect. 

There's an arguably unnecessary shot of real sex (using body-doubles), which felt like pointless provocation (albeit typical of Lars von Trier) but other than that? It's a gem of a prologue, and one of the very best sequences the Danish provocateur has ever crafted.