Horror Movie Title Sequences To Get You In The Spooky Mood

By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 31, 2012 7:40PM

Is Halloween about more than costumes and candy? If so, surely it's due to the DNA of the harvest festivals and festivals of the dead which are said to have preceded it (such as Samhain). As an occasion to integrate the notion of death into our everyday life and confront the specter of mortality which we spend most of our lives avoiding, Halloween performs a similar function as one of the most enduring genres of filmmaking, the horror film.

From Dr. Frankenstein's fateful disregard for the natural boundaries of life and death, to George Romero's ushering in the era of the modern zombie at the very moment of flippant graveyard hijinx (the immortal "they're coming to get you, Barbara") to this year's beloved Cabin in the Woods, where office bureaucrats invite their own peril by trivializing the dark and supernatural forces they think they control, horror movies are elementally concerned with the consequences of a disrespecting death and the afterlife.

With the holiday of Halloween, you have weeks of candy and costume displays to get you in the mood. Films, however, must be able to take you from quotidian existence to existential threat as entertainment in mere minutes. How do filmmakers get viewers across this River Styx of sensibilities? For modern movies, the transition is often accomplished via that once-neglected but increasingly scrutinized bit of cinematic business commonly called the "opening titles" or "title sequence."

Grabbing Your Attention

David Fincher is renowned for his visually meticulous and memorable title sequences, and that reputation was earned foremost by the way he kicked off 1995's serial killer classic, Se7en. Stitched-together P.O.V. imagery of the killer's planning and documentation of his crimes set to a remix of Nine Inch Nail's "Closer"? Just typing that gets us on the edge of our seat.

Sticking With You

Everything that makes John Carpenter's Halloween legendary is right here in the opening sequence. Using incredible economy, an eye for just the right detail (like the imperfection of the jack-o-lantern's carving), and buckets of pitch-black atmosphere ferried in by an unforgettable musical score he composed himself, the film forever transformed suburban safety into the playground of invincible serial killers, for better or for worse. That music, like the vibe of the movie as a whole, stays with you long after the final credits roll.

Set The Tone

Everything about Stanley Kubrick's title sequence for The Shining fills you with dread: the synthesized "Dies Irae" played in the background, the tiny car speeding vulnerably along an impossibly remote road into complete isolation, the credits scrolling "backwards," from the bottom up, and, oh yeah, the ghostly wails. Can anyone watch this and not thing it's a good idea for that car to turn around immediately?

Totally Weird You Out

For spectacular, bravura horror, Dario Argento is the brand name to trust, and Argento knows how to turn the volume knob up to WTF faster than anybody. The opening sequence for one of his stranger 1980s offerings, Opera establishes atmosphere, location, tone and communicates the integrated visual style characteristic of his work in the blink of an eye... a raven's eye.

Creating Its Own World

Art of the Title is a treasure of a website that hosts in-depth analysis, features and interviews on the subject of title sequences. For Halloween this year, they examine the memorable opening for the third installment of Carpenter's series, the Tommy Lee Wallace helmed Halloween III: Season of the Witch, an egg rotten enough to have nearly killed that particular golden goose. It does have its charms, especially the unforgettable television commercial for the silver shamrock masks, a visual theme established by orange and black jack-o’-lantern grinning menacingly on the television screen in the opening credits. Halloween III won no praise from critics or audiences, but if you were a kid at the time, it probably made an impression. In fact, we know someone who named his pet in honor of this Samhain-inspired flick: "Halloween III: Season of the Witch," the frog. It's probably best if we don't tell you how that story (or the titular film) ended up.