Opening Credits - AHS Murder House

 

Opening Credits of AHS Murder House

Timeline of Titles

This is a timeline of all the titles that appear in the opening credits of American Horror Story - Murder House. They include actors, creators and titles. I have included the times at which they appear and what kind of background they appear on.

 



Each of the titles appears on a black background which glitches out and uses an effect which makes it seems as though the title card is being burnt, this can be seen in some of the screenshots. The titles appear irregularly at intervals between 4-7 seconds, this change in timing makes it seem erratic and can unsettle the viewer. All the titles also use American Horror Story's trademark font.

Inspiration

Despite being of a different genre to our focus, these opening credits have an unsettling, grungy aura which could be incorporated into our own project. The music used is grimy and makes use of many different creepy sound effects which are repeated throughout and layered over each other to confuse the viewer. Part of a short tune is repeated throughout which could make the viewer seem as though they're trapped. Many of the noises are very loud and sudden and happen at seemingly random intervals which are intended to make you jump and hints at the unpredictability of the program.

Many of the images shown would be easy to recreate, for example several baby photos are shown with filters over the top to make the viewer unnerved. This creates a creepy effect as usually babies are associated with innocence so the images are a contrast to this. In a detective film noir film, the detective character is likely to have pictures of their children like this, and then filters could be used to set a creepy atmosphere.

Another easily replicated image would be broken glass or a broken mirror, which is a simple task but creates a gritty sense of disarray and abandonment if left around an old building.

Something I found interesting were the many handheld shots taken while walking around creepy rooms and corridors. This could be a very useful technique for setting the scene in our own film.

 

Another interesting part is the editing style. Many short clips of some disturbing images are shown and edited together with various glitch effects. It's very fast paced with some slower videos as well; the image above is slowed right down in the opening in amongst all the quick clips which can disorientate and confuse the viewer. This creates an erratic and unpredictable effect.

Later on in the clip the photos from earlier are seen being burnt, which is an interesting way of symbolising death which could be used in our film. The image of burning photos is also symbolic of cutting ties with someone and can be a solemn, heavy atmosphere event used to create tension.