"First impressions are everything. Whether it be a first date, a job interview, or meeting your significant other’s rogues gallery of eccentric family members, first impressions tell people who you are and what you are about. The same is true with films. In an age where moviegoers have one eye on their phone and one eye on the silver screen, movies need to quickly inform audiences why their particular tale is worth an audience’s time and (in the case of horror) sanity. Before we know a narrative’s particulars, those opening scenes—or a film’s cold open—inform the audience of what is to come. This could be traditional terror or, even more importantly, evoke the tonal direction a creative is striving for with their work.

Here are five of the most compelling contemporary cold opens in horror..."