The 10 Most Traumatic Opening Scenes In Horror [Watch]
Horror has earned a reputation for attention-grabbing teaser sequences. What’s a teaser, you ask? It’s the opening scenes in a film or television episode designed to draw the attention of the viewer straight out of the gate. And no genre has nailed down a proper teaser quite like horror has.
But what are the teaser scenes that have really messed us up the most? I mean the ones that hit us so hard across the face that we’ve never been able to forget them, even if we might have tried. Now we here at Dread Central have gathered the ten most shocking, scary and ultimately traumatic opening scenes in the history of horror. For this list, we are keeping to examples of modern Western horror, but soon we’ll be branching out with individual lists for other types of cinema.
From the Scream franchise to Stephen King’s Carrie and everything in between, here are horror’s top ten most traumatic opening sequences.
GHOST SHIP
While it may not be the scariest scene on this list, Ghost Ship still provides one hell of a gut punch. This classic opening is a water-cooler moment for the books. We’re still talking about this one to this day.
SCREAM 2
Seeing the Scream 2 opening in a theatre without it having been spoiled must have been the head spin of the century. The scary and brutal concept is heightened further by Jada Pinkett Smith’s excellent performance.
HALLOWEEN (1978)
The mother of all shocking openers, Halloween really takes the cake. While it likely doesn’t cast the same spell over modern movie-goers, this teaser scene was almost unlike anything audiences had encountered by 1978.
IT: CHAPTER ONE
Possibly a controversial entry to this list, the opening scene to It: Chapter One is more of an idea than it is a single dedicated cinematic scene. The horrifying clown-in-the-sewer-drain moment established in Stephen King’s novel has haunted horror fans for decades.
THE HITCHER
The quiet terror built in the first scene of The Hitcher is stressing me out just thinking about it. Rutger Hauer has never been better. When he answers “that’s what the other guy said” to the question “what do you want?” —well— there’s some definite doom and dread in the rainy air.
CARRIE
Another Stephen King entry, Carrie holds a very different type of trauma in its lengthy opening sequence. Puberty and coming-of-age embarrassment are tough things to deal with on a good day. But what happens in the first moments of Carrie is beyond tragic and almost too difficult to watch.
SCREAM
No explanation needed for this one. The Drew Barrymore death scene in Scream took the rule book and set it on fire. This is likely one of the scariest and most traumatic moments on film. Industry-standard. Iconic. No notes. Never the same.
FINAL DESTINATION 2
None of us have been okay since the highway pile-up disaster seen in Final Destination 2. We are all trembling behind the wheels of our car, just waiting for one of those log-baring trucks to appear and end all of our lives. We are traumatized. We are not okay.
JAWS
Oh, Lord. The opening death in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster phenomena Jaws is unimpeachable. The way that Chrissie yelps “ow” as she’s chomped on by Bruce is so unsettling and realistic, sometimes I wish it had never been cataloged in my memory. This is the moment that ruined swimming for multiple generations of movie-goers. What’s not to love?
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