20 Horror Movie Openings That Are Practically Perfect

One of the many things that makes The Substance such a horror masterpiece is how well it uses the language of cinema to tell its story and convey its themes, often with minimal dialogue. That was instantly clear from the opening moments alone, which do a remarkable job of setting everything up before we've even properly seen any of the characters. 

A montage of bird's-eye shots shows a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, that of Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), the story's protagonist. We see it being created, we see the ceremony, we see it being initially well-attended, before it becomes cracked and falls into neglect, thus conveying the rise and decline of Elizabeth Sparkle's career in less than a minute without a single line of dialogue. 

Of course, this sequence is legendarily called back to in the closing shot - following Sparkle's terrible dalliances with a dangerous drug, her body collapses into viscera on the star, which is then cleared up by a sidewalk scrubber. Absolute cinema.