bloody marvellous.

Film title sequences have become a mini art form in their own right, with the incomparable Saul Bass showing the way in the 1960s and more recent exponents like Kyle Cooper breaking new boundaries with his work on Se7en. Budget constraints have meant that TV has been left lagging behind, especially in the UK, where you immediately think of the perennially wet, sloping roofs across Manchester’s Coronation Street or the stock footage of a lumbering tortoise that heralds the opening of ‘One Foot in the Grave’. But True Blood, HBO’s excellent swamp-goth vampire series, has significantly raised the bar. The sublime opening credits, by Seattle’s Digital Kitchen, create an evocative visual tableau that perfectly sets the scene for what’s to follow. Fast cuts of slo-mo snakes and bloody roadkill are skilfully juxtaposed with Pentecostal rapture, sleazy sexual encounters and ancient car wreckage. Decay, blood, religion, voodoo, and the brooding intensity the Deep South, seep through in 65 masterfully edited shots. Jace Everett’s sweetly sinister country song ‘Bad Things’ provides a fitting soundtrack. Catch it if you can – the series starts on C4 on 7 October.


True Blood Main Titles from DIGITALKITCHEN on Vimeo.