Three Psychological Thriller Film Openings!

 Jan 28, 2026

Three Psychological Thriller Film Openings!

-For my 3 film openings, I chose some of my favorite movies: Split, Us, and Midsommar. all these movies follow the theme of suspense and fear while maintaining a mystery. 

Split (2016)

-Split is a psychological horror-thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. In the film, actor James McAvoy plays Kevin, a man with 23 distinct personalities who kidnaps three teenage girls. Kevin suffered from dissociative identity disorder (DID) and kidnaps Casey and her friends. While captured, the girls interact with Kevin's varying personalities in attempts to escape. In the opening scene, the camera focuses on the quiet girl while the others laugh in the background, showing that she is isolated and more observant than her friends. The scene shifts to the girl on the phone while two of her "friends" talk about her troublesome behaviors in school. The friends hadn't left yet because they were waiting on her to find a ride home. Ultimately, she got offered a ride home by one of the friends dad. As they walk to the car, he stays behind to load gifts into the trunk while the girls get inside. Inside the car, the two girls in the back seat are giggling and talking, while the quiet girl sits silently in the front seat. As she puts on her seatbelt, she hears a thud and notices something strange in the rearview mirror; the boxes of food were on the floor. Suddenly, a man hops into the drivers seat. This man is infact NOT the "friends" dad. He begins spraying the two girls who were giggling in the back with a chemical that'll knock them out to sleep and thinks he does't need to do the same with the girl in the front. Until, she attempts to boldly open the door when it made a loud noise. The man and the girl locked eyes and he sprayed her aswell, leaving us readers in a suspenseful spot.

Us (2019)

The movie Us is based on a 1986 childhood trauma where a little girl named Adelaide wanders off into a Santa Cruz beach funhouse while at the fair with her family, where she encounters her doppelganger, Red, who chokes her and swaps places with her for a better life. The movie follows a family whose vacation turns scary and violent when they are confronted by people who look exactly like them. The intro starts at a crowded fair where a little girl is with her parents, holding a candied apple while her dad wins her a T-shirt. As her parents argue about whether the shirt will give her nightmares, the girl quietly looks around and their voices become muffled, showing how disconnected she feels. She watches attently while her dad plays Whack-A-Mole and her mom goes to the bathroom, even though her dad is supposed to be watching her. After hearing thunder from the beach, she wanders off alone into the dark and finds a funhouse. Inside, everything feels confusing and creepy with strange reflections and voices. When the lights go out and only exit signs are reflected, she whistles a singy songy type of whistle and hears it copied back, when she realizes she is standing face to face with another girl who looks exactly like her.

Midsommar (2019)

Midsommar is a psychological horror film written and directed by Ari Aster and was released in 2019. The movie starts in a way that feels calm but also a little eerie before anything scary actually happens. The opening shows a detailed painting with one half full of bright sun and life, and the other half showing a skull, which already suggests the movie will be about life and death. While the painting is shown, classical music plays in the back, making the scene feel beautiful and unsettling at the same time. Then, the scene cuts to a snowy forest where a girl sings a slow, sad song while the forest keeps getting darker, which makes you feel like something scary or ominous is coming. It suddenly  and abruptly switches to a view from way above of a quiet town at night with the irritating sound of a phone ringing. When the voicemail starts, we go through a house at night, seeing things like family photos, clocks, and furniture, which makes the setting feel personal and real. The voicemail itself is from someone checking in with her parents because she got a scary email, which creates a sense of worry and unease before the main story even begins. This intro builds tension through mood and detail instead of jump scares, create a sense that things may be beautiful on the surface but could also be hiding something unsettling underneath.