There has been a lot of vampire hype around lately, what with Twilight, True Blood, and now the Swedish teen fang flick, Let The Right One In. Over the Christmas holidays I was finally able to watch the whole first season of True Blood, and I am addicted. Addicted in the I-can’t-stop-thinking-about-it-three-months-later-and-even-Mad Men-can’t-distract-me-from-hanging-out-for-the-second-season way. Last week at the supermarket I saw a bottle of dark red juice and was struck by a restless desire to skull the thick sticky stuff and float off into a hallucinatory heaven. Cadillac is also smitten, and what male of the Bruno Kirby variety wouldn’t be when Anna Paquin saunters through each episode in a variety of short shorts and little white singlets. Phwoar! To top things off, she is a psychic of sorts, able to listen in to the thoughts of the people around her. What more could anyone want?
There is blood, sex and supernatural goings on in abundance, but the absolute best thing about True Blood is the credit sequence. With Jace Everrett’s Bad Things setting up the rhythms, a rattlesnake rears its head, a child smears berry around his mouth, a gospel choir rouses a soul, and a dog’s carcass decays before our eyes. It’s a heady mix of sensation and contradiction, evoking a place where emotions are amplified and chaos is the order of the day.
The sequence was put together by Digital Kitchen, and opens with a tracking shot across the Mississippi, through the reeds and trees, down a wire lined highway and into the fickle heart of southern America. Historical stock footage is cut together with images Alan Ball and Matt Mulder filmed on super eight cameras on a road trip around Louisiana. This mix of the old and new works to create a mood – a shot of a young boy in Klu Klux Klan headgear is followed by a man rocking in a chair in a strange juxtaposition that gives the image of the man a sinister edge. Momentary shots of naked bodies are spliced beside church goers gyrating with the ecstasy of the lord. Linked by movement, it’s a lovely co-existence of the sacred and profane. In the south, it suggests, there is god and there is sex.
These credits create a space for the drama to unfold. Even before the episode begins, the images draw you into the world of the series, and very effectively too. It’s not just having a title sequence that doesn’t recycle images from within the show – there are plenty of shows with art designed openings – it’s that the credits complement and add to the episodes that follow. You might not be a fan of schlocky vampire trash, but watch the titles – they’re awesome.
