Anyone who has even thought about writing a screenplay is told right and left how important the first act is, how it has to set everything up-- genre, tone, vibe, leads, conflict, etc... and it’s the truth. The first ten pages have to sing, because in case you didn't know, unless you're paying for coverage, an industry pro will bail after 10 pages if it's not good. Hate to tell you this, but when you read enough screenplays, you can tell how good it is by 10 pages.
This is why it is super important for your opening sequence to be one of the best scenes in your entire script. Not only is it the first impression you get as a writer, it should also be a snapshot of what the audience is in for. But the most important thing it has to do?
HOOK.
We all know a what a hook is, but to be clear-- after that opening scene your reader/view should have a burning question and a vested interest in what is going on, and the only way to satisfy those two things is for them to keep reading/watching. So how do you hook? I spilled the beans above— you set up a questions that needs to be answered. You create stakes with no immediate outcome. You establish danger. You create a cliffhanger. OR you just vibe so hard, your target audience member is just IN.
In no way is this meant to be complete or exhaustive, and keep in mind you can easily combine multiple of these situations…
OPEN ON ACTION, is probably the most tried and true. Even in dramatic films, opening on a high tension moment works great to suck people in. It could be two people in an intense dialog, or it could be a fight. A CHASE is the most basic action in film history. Think STAR WARS.
AN INFODUMP doesn't sound super interesting, but it's often the best way to set up a world, or pose a question. "What if I told you, XYZ?" And XYZ changed your world view? CHILDREN OF MEN drops its bomb off the bat and you have to keep watching.
VIBE. The music, the visuals, the style, a unique world-- if the story FADES IN and you're immediately entranced by how it makes you feel, that's impactful. STRANGE DAYS. I'd say DRIVE too, but it combines VIBE with a chase.
THE FAKE OUT. You think you're getting X, but actually, you're getting Y. This works great for stories where the lead lives a boring existence and that's about to change. Pixar leans deep into their status quos at the top of their films.
THE WTF. This is basically the same as the fake out, but at such an extreme it feels like you're suddenly watching a different movie after the open. MAGNOLIA still crushes this for me.
THE FLIP. We start with what seems to be an ordinary scene, something out of everyday life, but then, odd details start to pop up, and then suddenly, there's a reversal you never saw coming. BLADE RUNNER opens with what we think is a performance review-- but isn't.
THE FLASHBACK generally shows us the traumatic backstory for our lead, the thing that establishes why they are what they are and will make their arc clear. Works great for character-driven stories.
THE FLASHFORWARD is what you get when execs don't like a slow-burn story, and think you need to get some danger introduced ASAP, but the writer refuses to pre-escalate their stakes... or you're JJ Abrams. Popular in TV.
Since I've decided to make my tip-giving unique by calling it Scary Movie School, obviously, we should now get into these ideas specifically for horror. To start with-- without question. YOU MUST VIBE. Horror should set it's tone and feel from the go, so unless you're WTFing— Make your opens moody, spooky, and/or full of tension. They should unsettle.
Any of the above scenarios can work for horror, but obviously you want to combine them with some sort of scare. Again, a lot of execs feel as though you need a kill in the opening scene, (you don't).
I like to think of opening scene scares coming in three varieties, all of which can merge with any of the scenarios above: breaking the lead, the informed scare, and the uninformed scare. Breaking the lead is often paired with a flashback, it's all about that trauma.
An informed scare is when you show us people going to face a thing they know to be scary, and it usually goes wrong. Think Ghostbusters or Devil's rejects. The Uninformed scare is the most common-- bad stuff happens to innocent people.
The most common openings currently, are the flashback to trauma, the uninformed scaring of innocents, and the "cold open kill." Cold open is term from TV where you have a scene that jumps right into action before you get a title card. It can be present tense, or a flashback-- but usually isn't the main characters. Often times you can think of it as "the last time this happened." With "this" being whatever spooky thing your leads run up against is.
A list of spooky opening scenes that occur to me in this moment, not intended to be uninclusive so don't get mad if I don't list yours: Jaws. Babadook. Raw. Scream. Jennifer's Body. Halloween. It Follows. Final Destination 2. The Ring. Zombieland. Sweetheart.