1. Frankenstein (1931)
Dracula was the
first great sound horror film, but though its use of the “Scene 10 Moderato” from
Swan Lake is so memorable that the
piece has been used as horror shorthand in films such as The Mummy and Black Swan,
the music plays out over the Batman insignia, which isn’t too scary. Universal
did a better job of getting a title sequence right with its follow up to Tod
Browning’s film. After Edward Van Sloan gives his equally corny and creepy
opening monologue, Bernhard Kaun’s brassy score shudders forth. On screen we see a
clawed monster, most dissimilar to Karloff’s flathead, reaching from the
darkness. This cuts to a leering portrait of, presumably, the title doctor, who
once again looks nothing like the actor who will play him in the film that
follows. Around Dr. Frankenstein’s head, disembodied eyes swirl, both
foreshadowing the sundry body parts that will constitute the monster and mirroring the
many eyes of the audience watching him from the darkened theater. The monster’s
credit is equally memorable, as he is named only with a large question mark,
recalling his similar crediting in the first stage production of Frankenstein 108 years earlier.
2. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
(1948)
Seventeen years after Frankenstein,
Universal gave in to playing its main monster for laughs. For a picture such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,
an opening as eerie as the 1931 one wouldn’t do at all. So Universal reached
into its sack of associates and pulled out Walter Lantz, who’d produced the
“Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” series for the studio from 1928 to 1938. Lantz is
best known for cracking up audiences with his creation, Woody Woodpecker, and
the style of those classic cartoons is instantly recognizable in the credits
sequence of Abbott and Costello Meet
Frankenstein, which begins with the monster raising skeletal Bud and Lou
from their coffins before introducing the menagerie of monsters in iconic
silhouettes. I could watch an entire movie of this credits sequence.
Saul Bass is the only title designer who has become a
household name, and not just because of that “Seinfeld” episode in which Kramer
thinks Salman Rushdie has been hiding out at his gym under the pseudonym Sal
Bass (“He just replaced one fish with another, Jerry!”). Bass’s poster designs
for films such as The Shining, Vertigo, and Anatomy of a Murder are as unforgettable as the credits sequence he
masterminded for Psycho. Abetted by
Bernard Hermann’s jittery score, Bass indicates all the violence and disjointed
psychology to follow by slashing the screen with straight lines from every
direction and cracking up the title and credits. It’s incredibly simple and
incredibly effective.
4. Repulsion (1965)
Saul Bass’s Psycho
sequence is a symphony of constant movement. Maurice Binder’s title sequence
for the similarly psychologically fractured Repulsion
is all about stillness. Catherine Deneuve had to remain completely still while
Roman Polanski shot her eye in a tight close-up reminiscent of Bass’s Vertigo titles. Polanski says he was
more inspired by the slicing-up-eyeballs scene in Un Chien Andalou, and he had Binder end his design by having
Polanski’s name slice across Deneuve’s eye in tribute. Before that disturbing
denouement, the credits drift up from her lower lid, over her lens, and up into
her upper lid to unsettling effect. A single drum heartbeats on the
soundtrack in another stark contrast to the chaotically musical opening of Psycho.
5. Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told
(1968)
From the quietly disturbing to the unapologetically silly, the
title sequence of Jack Hill’s cult horror-comedy Spider Baby looks like something from a Halloween special for
pre-schoolers. Simplistic illustrations of smiling faces, howling puppy dogs, dopey
kids, a waving goofus in overalls, and of course, spiders, pop across the screen
as star Lon Chaney, Jr., bellows the daffy theme song. Although Spider Baby is a lot of fun, its fun is
much nastier than these kiddie kredits indicate, making them subversive enough
to balance the saccharine images EIP designed.
6. Cry of the Banshee (1970)
Here at the halfway mark we digress from the classic movies
that precede and follow for a real piece of shit. Gordon Hessler’s Cry of the Banshee is an awful Witchfinder General knock-off that
wastes Vincent Price amidst dullness and totally off-putting rape scenes. Yet
one thing nearly redeems this terrible, terrible film: a brilliant title
sequence designed by Terry Gilliam. Gilliam’s signature whimsical cut outs
flutter, glare, and crack like eggs. Although the intended effect was
presumably creepy, it’s hard not to find it hilarious after seeing his similar
work for Monty Python. Tune in for this fantastic sequence and bag the rest of
the flick.
7. Jaws (1975)
Steven Spielberg establishes a key facet of Jaws in his opening title sequence. A shark’s
pov camera races across the ocean floor as John William’s incessant theme
consumes the soundtrack. We make the connection instantly: that music means the
great white is on the hunt, which will be a necessary clue later in the film
when an unscored panic on the beach turns out to be the work of a couple of
kids with a cardboard dorsal fin. More importantly, Spielberg begins a film
that wants us on the side of its human protagonists by placing us in the body
and robotic brain of his antagonistic shark. We look out through its doll’s
eyes as it restlessly roams the sea, and for a moment we understand the
monster. It’s just a little hungry.
8. Carrie (1976)
Whereas Spielberg invited us to empathize with his killing
machine, Brian De Palma has always been a lot more interested in straight-up
voyeurism. The opening credits of his horrific high school melodrama Carrie cuts from the title character
getting guff from her gym classmates for missing the ball in a volleyball game
to a veritable soft-core scene in which these “schoolgirls” (none of whom look
younger than twenty-eight) whip each other with towels in the nude in leering
slow motion. The effect is pervy, but also hazy and ethereal, like a teen’s wet
dream. Pino Donaggio’s muzak score adds to the unnaturalness and cheesiness of
the sequence until the peeping tom lens settles on that figure of derision,
Carrie White. We get a lingering view of her in apparent ecstasy as she washes
away her recent shame under the hot water. But then, with a trickle of menstrual
blood, the humiliation returns ten fold as Carrie shrieks in terror of her own
body and her classmates point, laugh, and shriek her to “plug it up.” It is a
title sequence alternately erotic, unnatural, comic, shocking, and cruel— a
perfect encapsulation of the film that follows.
9. Halloween (1978)
John Carpenter’s title sequence for Halloween is just as perfect as Carrie’s even as it tells us nothing about the
film aside from the setting. Carpenter makes the two most overly familiar
holiday tropes— a palette of black and orange and a jack-o-lantern—freshly
frightening with the depth of the screen’s blackness, the slow dolly-in on the glowing pumpkin, and his own relentless
score.
10. Alien (1979)
The credits sequence of Alien
has only slightly more action than that of Halloween. The camera glides through
an otherworldly skyscape beneath Jerry Goldsmith’s sinisterly minimalistic
score. Above, cryptic symbols appear, building line by line until forming the
title, much as the creature we see born and built to towering, terrifying
adulthood forms in the movie.
