Hello, I hope you’re doing well. I’m a professional artist specializing in comics, sci-fi, fantasy, book covers, and character design. I’m looking for commissions..I can help turn your novel into a comic also i work on covers, logos, pages, panels, and also adult works. Can I show you my works?
AHS was such a let down (although I think the acting was generally quite good). The German show Dark has a suitably mind bending opening sequence (if you're in the mood for depressing existentialist horror). Can't believe how lucky audiences in the 80s were to get Gorey and Price all in one show!
Depressing existentialist horror is right up my street! Agree about AHS, it was trashy fun when I was younger but I’ve never had the desire to rewatch. The storytelling is all over the place so once you know all the twists there’s nothing left to engage you.
The X-Files is and will probably always be my favorite tv opener. It just completely sets the tone for the show. Mark Snow was the secret weapon there. Obviously The X-Files don’t work without Duchovny and Anderson and their chemistry, but Snow’s music gave the show its atmosphere, starting with the theme song.
The Tales of the Unexpected theme was really unsettling so I was terrified before the show had even started. And I was too young to be watching it anyway!
Also, you mentioned Bagpuss above, but it wasn’t the opening tune that freaked me out, it was the song the wee mice sang. That was creepy as all hell! 🐁 😱
Someone pointed out to me recently in another post that their song is sung to the tune of ‘summer is icumen in’ which means Bagpuss shares a soundtrack with The Wicker Man and is therefore a folk horror..?
This was regional (the New York independent tv station WPIX in New York ran this in the late 1970s), but every horror film addict in the New York area (and those of us who had to get cable because the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains blocked TV signals), the opener for Chiller Theatre scared the shit out of us, and we all watched the opener even if the movie that Saturday night was garbage: https://youtu.be/mGOxlzEqC20?si=mW-TY-O-RpBqb09S
I love the intro to the first season of True Detective (the show was okay), with the song "Far From Any Road" by The Handsome Family (I saw them in concert this year, a husband/wife duo). She writes the very weird lyrics and he's the main singer (but that's her singing on this song with her creepy little voice). YouTube (it repeats itself): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRPpCqXYoos
Love this - I went down the rabbit hole of title design years ago, purely due to the AHS intros. The True Blood opening is another favourite and really captures the Southern Gothic feeling.
"Many a child tuned in just to watch this strange macabre cartoon and were disappointed when the rest of the show was boring real actors." Every👏🏻Freaking 👏🏻Time👏🏻. Mystery and the grieving woman with her hankie will always be my favorite, but the X-files is also deliciously nostalgic as it was such a high point of my week for years.
Haha excellent. What’s the point of a childhood if it isn’t filled with nightmare fuel? I love the title ‘Eerie Indiana’ I definitely want to watch that. I’m British but I must have missed ‘Strange But True.’ We had this show called ‘Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids’ which I almost can’t believe got made it’s straight up horror
As a child, by far the scariest opening credits sequence I ever watched was ftom the 1980s Joan Hickson BBC production of Miss Marple. I love Agatha Christie but those black and white drawings accompanied by the beautiful yet somehow sinister theme music made me and my brother race to bed on a Wednesday night so that we wouldn’t be traumatised!
I'm quite old now but the title sequence of 'Children of the Stones' (HTV 1977, folk horror - for kids!) still terrifies me 48 years on from when I first saw it. The swoopy trippy camerawork round the Avebury stones is one thing, but it's the extremely sinister vocal music that does it:
Maybe not so much for their actual quality, but the opening credits of Sam Raini's American Gothic always hit the mark with me.
Great example!
Hello, I hope you’re doing well. I’m a professional artist specializing in comics, sci-fi, fantasy, book covers, and character design. I’m looking for commissions..I can help turn your novel into a comic also i work on covers, logos, pages, panels, and also adult works. Can I show you my works?
AHS was such a let down (although I think the acting was generally quite good). The German show Dark has a suitably mind bending opening sequence (if you're in the mood for depressing existentialist horror). Can't believe how lucky audiences in the 80s were to get Gorey and Price all in one show!
Depressing existentialist horror is right up my street! Agree about AHS, it was trashy fun when I was younger but I’ve never had the desire to rewatch. The storytelling is all over the place so once you know all the twists there’s nothing left to engage you.
What about "Chiller Thriller"? I still can't watch that!
Sounds like ‘Driller Killer!’ Imagine a video nasty style intro…
No, I’m talking about an actual animated intro to a horror movie anthology series in the 1970s.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ok6uzndOmPA&pp=ygUQY2hpbGxlciB0aHJpbGxlcg%3D%3D
I know, it just sounds similar. I think you meant to type 'Chiller Theatre' in the original comment?
Yes. Thank you. Anyway, scary stuff, don’t you think?
Very much so! A great example.
The X-Files is and will probably always be my favorite tv opener. It just completely sets the tone for the show. Mark Snow was the secret weapon there. Obviously The X-Files don’t work without Duchovny and Anderson and their chemistry, but Snow’s music gave the show its atmosphere, starting with the theme song.
Agreed, it’s an underrated element of the show!
The Tales of the Unexpected theme was really unsettling so I was terrified before the show had even started. And I was too young to be watching it anyway!
Also, you mentioned Bagpuss above, but it wasn’t the opening tune that freaked me out, it was the song the wee mice sang. That was creepy as all hell! 🐁 😱
Someone pointed out to me recently in another post that their song is sung to the tune of ‘summer is icumen in’ which means Bagpuss shares a soundtrack with The Wicker Man and is therefore a folk horror..?
https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/blog/bagpuss-andmedieval-reading
So Bagpuss was my gateway to horror?! 😮😁
I think so!
This was regional (the New York independent tv station WPIX in New York ran this in the late 1970s), but every horror film addict in the New York area (and those of us who had to get cable because the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains blocked TV signals), the opener for Chiller Theatre scared the shit out of us, and we all watched the opener even if the movie that Saturday night was garbage: https://youtu.be/mGOxlzEqC20?si=mW-TY-O-RpBqb09S
This has such a ‘creepy early Eastern European animation’ vibe to it. Great example!
I thought of Mystery right away!
I love the intro to the first season of True Detective (the show was okay), with the song "Far From Any Road" by The Handsome Family (I saw them in concert this year, a husband/wife duo). She writes the very weird lyrics and he's the main singer (but that's her singing on this song with her creepy little voice). YouTube (it repeats itself): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRPpCqXYoos
This is so cool and atmospheric, definitely an intro you’d watch every time without skipping!
Love this - I went down the rabbit hole of title design years ago, purely due to the AHS intros. The True Blood opening is another favourite and really captures the Southern Gothic feeling.
Ah nice, it does remind me of AHS!
I’ll just leave that here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6b2G8ySKNgA
It was spooky for 90s kid
We didn’t have a lot of other entertainment in those days
Fellow 90s kid, can confirm :)
Oh my god, this is terrifying! Did the rest of the show deliver?
"Many a child tuned in just to watch this strange macabre cartoon and were disappointed when the rest of the show was boring real actors." Every👏🏻Freaking 👏🏻Time👏🏻. Mystery and the grieving woman with her hankie will always be my favorite, but the X-files is also deliciously nostalgic as it was such a high point of my week for years.
I love the little sound she makes, it’s all so well crafted…I’ve been rewatching the X-files. So much fun!
Are you afraid of the dark, despite being a CHILDREN’S SHOW used to properly give me the creeps.
I also really used to love the opening sequence to Eerie Indiana.
The X Files is also an obvious one. There also used to be a British Tv Show called Strange But True where even the adverts terrified me.
Basically, I have an entire childhood worth of trauma from TV show intros
Haha excellent. What’s the point of a childhood if it isn’t filled with nightmare fuel? I love the title ‘Eerie Indiana’ I definitely want to watch that. I’m British but I must have missed ‘Strange But True.’ We had this show called ‘Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids’ which I almost can’t believe got made it’s straight up horror
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VifA5eH0iFE&list=PLnecUEUk1orbRBysImD_0SY4t3qWffSYM
The Gorey Mystery! opening to Diana Rigg hosting, to the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes literally formed my brain.
Diana Rigg has had the coolest career
As a child, by far the scariest opening credits sequence I ever watched was ftom the 1980s Joan Hickson BBC production of Miss Marple. I love Agatha Christie but those black and white drawings accompanied by the beautiful yet somehow sinister theme music made me and my brother race to bed on a Wednesday night so that we wouldn’t be traumatised!
Oh wow it’s like a cross between Mystery! and Bagpuss
Haha! Yes!
I'm quite old now but the title sequence of 'Children of the Stones' (HTV 1977, folk horror - for kids!) still terrifies me 48 years on from when I first saw it. The swoopy trippy camerawork round the Avebury stones is one thing, but it's the extremely sinister vocal music that does it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwT0wLnT7Rc
It’s so eerie… I’ve heard loads of good stuff about Children of the Stones I need to watch it