20 Horror Movie Openings That Are Practically Perfect

Like so many of the movies it pays homage to, Eli Roth's slasher throwback Thanksgiving kicks off with a tragedy that drives the movie's secret villain to unleash a wave of grisly violence upon the community. Having said this, few similar movies kicked things off as well as this. 

Here, a crowd crush unfolds on Black Friday and this leads to the deaths of at least three people, all of whom die with the gory brutality you'd expect from an Eli Roth flick. It's a tragedy that's not only viscerally intense, but also sadly believable. Black Friday sales are notorious for mob hysteria and people getting hurt, so this isn't exactly far-fetched. 

This authenticity is further increased by the presence of likeable, down-to-earth characters and a relatable small-town America setting, reinforcing this as a rare example of a film pastiche that actually surpasses most of the movies it's paying homage to.

As viewers might've guessed from this opening alone, Thanksgiving ended up being by far the best movie in Eli Roth's less-than-stellar filmography, and this is one of the decade's finest horror intros thus far.