Carnivàle

Name: Carnivàle
Genre: Horror

2003–2005HBOHorror

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Tarot cards dissolving into Depression-era photographs and newsreel, so the reading and the history become the same footage. Another Emmy winner, and still one of the strangest things a network put in front of a drama.

Carnivàle kept one opening title sequence, 87 seconds long, across seasons 1–2.

At 87 seconds, it opens well above the 50-second median for horror sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on HBO in 2003, when Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos and Oz were also on the network.

1 sequence175th most looked up of 479 in the 2000sIMDb ↗

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The opening titles

Seasons 1–2

87s

The cards turn, and each one opens onto archive film of the Dust Bowl and the war to come.

More horror opening titles from the 2000s

1 sequence

Supernatural

2005–2020The WB / The CWHorror

Fifteen years without an opening title sequence, and fifteen distinct title cards instead — a few seconds of the show's name, restyled from scratch every season to match what that year was about. The shortest main titles on this site, and the ones that changed the most.

Seasons 1–15

1 sequence

The Vampire Diaries

2009–2017The CWHorror

A short title card: the name in gold serif lettering rising over a fogbound road at night, then alone on black.

Season 1

1 sequence

True Blood

2008–2014HBOHorror

Digital Kitchen again, and their nastiest work: swamp water, roadkill, a revival tent, a child in a Klan hood, all cut to Jace Everett's 'Bad Things'. It promises a show about the South rather than a show about vampires.