Graphic Design: Unpacking American Horror Story’s
Main Titles with Kyle Cooper
From Murder House to Delicate, the director/designer breaks down his 12 haunting preludes
for the TV phenomenon
Words by Lana Thorn and Alex Secilmis
28 June 2024
Cooper on the set of his 2001 film New Port South
Kyle
Cooper is the biggest name in title sequence design today. He’s the lead creative director of
Prologue Films. You’ll know their work from many a major superhero film (Spider-Man, X-Men:
First Class, Iron Man). If you enjoy the kinetic collages of Mission Impossible (1 and 4) or the
dynamic mixed-media titles of a Guy Ritchie movie (RocknRolla, Sherlock Holmes), that’s
Prologue too. As the go-to for prolific showrunner Ryan Murphy, their sequences are sure to be
lighting up your television screens. For you Phantasmag readers, you’ll know Cooper best for the
terrifying serial-killer POV sequence in Se7en: a game-changer that redefined how main titles could
complement a film.
With Prologue, Cooper has produced and directed hundreds of main title and visual effects
sequences across a wide spectrum of film and broadcast mediums. The work is not just impressive
in quantity, nor in its adaptability to any genre, but in its consistent originality and innovation.
Details magazine holds Cooper responsible for “almost single-handedly revitalising the main title
sequence,” while Wired asserts that “not since Saul Bass’ legendary preludes...have credits
attracted such attention.” He’s received two Emmys, the Lifetime Achievement medal from the
American Institute of Graphic Arts, and The Locarno Film Festival Visionary Award among many
other honours.
With an education from the best in American graphic design - Paul Rand and Alvin Eisenman -
Cooper attributes the resonance of his work to time-tested artistic principles. “When you’re
measuring art, the same kind of criteria can be used all throughout history. The best work comes
when you aren’t just doing something trendy, but thinking about form and classic design theories.”
While Prologue’s titles preface a range of Hollywood tentpoles, Cooper has a special relationship
with the horror genre. He was born on Friday the 13th, after all. He definitively broke into the
industry with the eerie, jittery sequence forSe7en, where he hand-scratched the titles onto the film stock. It showcased an ability to single out a script’s subconscious, shooting new material that
foregrounded the film’s symbolism and set the tone for what was to come. “I look for beauty in
some really dark things,” Cooper says of his process.
Nowhere is this talent more abundantly on display than in his work on American Horror Story.
Since premiering in 2011, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s hit anthology series has been
revolutionary both for bringing full-blown horror to network television (its graphic violence and sex
surpasses any previous spooky TV series) and its pioneering representation of women and queer
characters. Each of its 12 seasons is a mostly self-contained horror miniseries, with a troupe of
actors (Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson) returning year after year in different parts. It’s
both terrifying and good fun: amidst the chills, there’s plenty of camp and biting humour. The
creators made Glee after all.
Cooper’s title sequences for the series have built up a following in their own right. With each
season, fans eagerly await his collage of disparate, creepy imagery and try to dissect what it
signifies for the story. Calling from California, the director/designer tells Phantasmag about the
origins of Coven’s famous winged demon; how Se7en and Final Destination helped him get the
AHS job; and perfecting pregnancy horror for the newest season, Delicate.
MURDER HOUSE
©FX
The
first season of American Horror Story, retroactively titled Murder House, was instantly a force
to be reckoned with. Telling the story of the Harmon family as they move into the titular haunted
home, the show had all it needed to be a classic. A BDSM killer called the Rubber Man; the twisted
love story of Tate and Violet (Romeo and Juliet, but worse); dialogue that will forever be quoted on
the Tumblrs and TikToks of the future: “Who is junglejim4322?”; “There’s not going to be a
swimming pool, you stupid slut!”
Dark forces were at play (for the good) when Cooper first designed the iconic titles for AHS.
Cooper had a meeting with Ryan Murphy, who was understandably curious about collaborating
with the man who did Se7en. “He asked me if I had done the title sequence, and I said yes. He was
like ‘Did you really do it?’ and I said ‘Yeah!’”
Before long, Cooper paid a visit to the murder house. He sat in Murphy’s car near the set, listening
to temp music the co-creator had selected for inspiration. As he considered the various elements of
the brief, Cooper had an idea. He had read the scripts about the Harmon family and their home’s
carnival of lost souls, but was particularly struck by the tragic story of Thaddeus Montgomery: the child who was dismembered and grotesquely reassembled to create a Franken-baby known as the
Infantata.
“I took a risk by shooting stuff myself before I was even awarded the job,” Cooper explains. He was
filming the sequence for Final Destination 5 in an old Mary Pickford Studios stage, which came
with a creepy basement. The Infantata lives in the basement of the murder house, so Cooper decided
the title sequence would be from the creature’s POV. “I ran around with a 16mm camera at my thigh
level, like I was this little creature lurking downstairs,” he explains. The unsettling movement is
intercut with the bloody tools of the evil Dr Montgomery, the Infantata’s christening dress falling in
slow-motion, and the piercing stares of children in sepia-toned pictures (Cooper was fascinated by
the thought of the babies idly watching all the violence).
The title sequence wouldn’t be complete without its famed music: a glitchy piece that mostly
ditches melody in favour of churning, gurgling sound design that gets under the skin. Cooper’s
editor, Gabriel Diaz, had a friend who was a composer. They presented an edit to Murphy, set to
César Dávila-Irizarry’s unique track (which would ultimately be reworked by Saw composer
Charlie Clouser). “Usually they give you a score, or you shoot something and then they score to it.
But we proposed that music, and Ryan liked it.” The series’ signature font was also born out of a
back-and-forth with Murphy. “He showed me a book about Frank Lloyd Wright, which had a sort of
art nouveau font. I saw it and thought of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh font.” Cooper speaks
highly of Ryan Murphy and producer Alexis Martin Woodall: “They’re very collaborative. With the
titles we established the brand together.”
ASYLUM
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AHS returned in 2012, swapping the haunted house for a 1960s psychiatric hospital. The season is
even darker than its predecessor, relying less on tongue-in-cheek humour and instead spotlighting
the real-life injustices that would occur in a facility at the time. It features Murphy’s long-time muse
Sarah Paulson in her first leading role as the stubborn journalist, Lana Winters, imprisoned in the
asylum for her lesbian sexuality.
Asylum is unique in that Cooper shot the sequence on the show’s actual set. His 16mm camera
guides us through the institution, amidst flashes of troubled patients, devious doctors, and horny
nuns.
“I didn’t think of it as a sequel. I don’t think of any of them as sequels, but they’re part of the same
family,” he says. While the music, font, and editing styles are consistent across many seasons, each
one of his sequences scares in its own way.
Cooper even makes an appearance himself. “We had a woman who was supposed to be thrashing on
the bed, but I couldn’t get her to do it. She was an extra, not an actress. So I put on the apron and
started wringing my hands and rocking back and forth.” He admits the transition to acting wasn’t
too trying. “There’s a lot of anxiety shooting in these situations, so I think I was already feeling like
that anyway.”
COVEN
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In 2013 on Tumblr, the third season of AHS reigned supreme. With its almost all-female main cast,
heightened humour (one word: Balenciaga!), and the season-long mystery about who would
become the witches’ leader, Coven took the series to new heights and grew its already impressive
legion of die-hard fans. Having Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, and Stevie Nicks join the party
certainly helped.
Cooper responded to the material with raging pyres, menacing cloaked figures, and goats both real
and sketched. It’s the first season to feature discernible animation, where each actor’s title card is
accompanied by a moving drawing—a black cat for Kathy Bates, a row of hanged men for Denis
O’Hare.
One frame in particular captured fans’ attention: a skeletal, winged demon standing alone in the
woods. “No, I didn’t know that [the creature went viral on Tumblr]. It was originally made for
something else, a pitch for a film adaptation of CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. That fell through,
but I had this model and I wanted to use it.”
In designing the demon, Cooper enlisted skills he’s had since childhood. “I liked horror movies. Not
slashers, but monster movies. I would obsessively sharpen my pencil and draw these incredibly
detailed creatures. It was a way to lose myself and process difficulties in my life.” For Coven, he
drew inspiration from goat heads and bat wings and hired a 3D specialist to make the model we
ultimately see in the titles. “I put it in the sequence and nobody complained. I thought it would be
spooky and make the audience go ‘What’s that?’”
FREAK SHOW
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With Jessica Lange’s last season in the main cast, AHS went to the circus. It’s as crazy as you would
hope. There’s a maniacal clown killer, a two-headed Sarah Paulson, Lange singing Bowie and Lana
del Rey, and Evan Peters using his large cleft hands to offer unique sexual services.
While Cooper’s first three sequences all splice various disturbing visuals shot on 16mm, Freak
Show breaks the mould and leans into stop-motion. By playing the main theme on a music box, it
also adjusts Dávila-Irizarry’s and Clouser’s music for the first time—which now sounds like the
arrival of an ice cream truck from hell. Led by the hypnotic score, the sequence invites us to meet
the “freaks.”
“We built a miniature circus set,” Cooper explains. “We were thinking about stop-motion animators
like Wladislaw Starewicz, the Quay Brothers, and Ray Harryhausen. We built it shot by shot,
drawing and modelling circus wagons and baby sculptures that pulled their own heads off.” The creatures - ranging from lustful little skeletons grinding on each other to a machine man
hammering nails into his head - are realised through a mix of stop-motion, CGI, and live-action to a
highly uncanny effect. With its pronounced body horror, it’s one of the most disturbing sequences.
HOTEL
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Two words: Lady Gaga. In her first lead acting role (for which she would win a Golden Globe),
Gaga plays the Countess: a fashionable hundred-year-old vampire and owner of the thoroughly
haunted Hotel Cortez. Its residents include Sarah Paulson as an addict with severe abandonment
issues, and Evan Peters as a comedic killer inspired by real-life monster H. H. Holmes. There’s gore
aplenty, but the camp is heightened. At one point, vampire Matt Bomer does the Drake dance to
Hotline Bling.
Watching Cooper’s seedy, voyeuristic title sequence is the perfect way for fans to check in to the
Hotel Cortez. Set to another remix of the theme (this time a synthetic violin plays the main melody,
evoking an old record the Countess may have enjoyed before she turned), the intro is a highlight
reel to make you rethink your next weekend getaway. Maids scrub pools of blood, creepy kids roam
the hallways, and monsters crawl out of mattresses.
To play on fears of disturbed privacy, Cooper had a nifty camera trick. “I really liked the way that
the characters looked through a peephole. So we took a real peephole with glass in it, and mounted
it to the lens.” The added framing encourages viewers to sneak a peek. But beware, you might find
a witch with a toothy grin suggestively rubbing her stockings.
CULT
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After a year off with Roanoke (in a meta twist, the show’s sixth season was presented as a fictional
true-crime programme), Cooper returned with the politically-charged Cult. The season, which went
into production mere months after the 2016 election, plays out as a battle between the show’s
longtime male and female leads. With one radicalised and the other traumatised by Trump’s win, it’s
Evan Peters’ charismatic cult leader (Kai) vs Sarah Paulson’s phobia-ridden lesbian (Ally)—who
worries the president’s policies will tear her family apart.
“I wasn’t really trying to make any reference to current events,” Cooper admits. While the sequence
does tip its hat to America’s political chaos (there are cameos for both Trump and Hilary masks, and
the theme music is now played on mockingly patriotic military horns), the director/designer wisely
prioritises Ally’s phobias. “I was thinking more about her fears, like the bees. I also focused on the
dead dog and those gas masks that people had to wear.” Ally has trypophobia (the fear of clusters of
holes) and Cooper accordingly fills the sequence with bee hives and bloody drains. She’s equally
spooked by clowns, so he puts some on a merry-go-round in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. With Ally’s
phobias as a manifestation of a queer woman’s distress in the time of Trump, the titles elegantly
explore the frightening realities of the election.
APOCALYPSE
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The only legitimate “sequel” in the franchise, AHS’ eighth season deceptively begins in a nuclear
fallout shelter before revealing itself as a crossover between Murder House and Coven. The witches
from the latter season fight to take down the Antichrist introduced in the former.
“It had to be devils and goats and satanic stuff, but also explosions,” Cooper says. “We needed to
reference the previous seasons as well as the iconography of the mushroom cloud.” Time-lapses of
melting candles (the necessary light source in the end-times) intertwine with shots from sequences 1
and 3. In a testament to the power of Cooper’s work, these images are instantly recognisable to any
fan: the glassy-eyed children from Murder House, the famed skeletal demon of Coven, and the
Infantata’s falling christening dress.
1984
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It began with the haunted house tale, updated witch horror for the 2010s, and served up a twisted
political thriller. With its ninth season, AHS took on the 80s summer slasher. Franchise mainstays
Emma Roberts and Billie Lourd are camp counsellors who dabble in jazzercise, while their Jason/
Michael figure is a killer janitor by the name of Mr Jingles (his noisy keys signal your death).
With 1984, Cooper again breaks the mould with a collage that plays gleefully with the aesthetic of
the period. Roller skates, Walkmans, Ronald Reagan, and title cards drenched in neons as bright as
the aerobics outfits the sequence also spotlights. The main theme has morphed into a spunky synth
slasher score. No 80s touchstone is left unturned.
With a huge, international fanbase, it’s become customary for AHS devotees to make their own title
sequences in anticipation of the real thing. When the season’s setting was announced, Corey Vega
assembled a fan edit (his idea was a “cursed VHS tape” capturing the look of the perfect 80s
slasher) that caught the eye of Ryan Murphy. Soon, he was collaborating with Prologue as a
conceptual designer. “Getting to work with Kyle Cooper and his ridiculously talented team was a
dream,” Vega tells us. “His work speaks for itself—he’s so great at what he does, and knew exactly
what questions to ask to get our final product.”
“Corey’s version was mostly stock footage and scenes from films that felt right for the period,”
Cooper explains. “So we were inspired by that and I talked to him about his reasoning for the
imagery he chose.” From there, the designer stitched together his own collage, predominantly of
stock clips, while Prologue also shot new material (like the man ominously dragging an axe)
covered luxuriously in film grain.
Read Corey Vega’s exclusive first-person account, where he talks evertyhing from creating his original fan edit to the wonderful shock of
hearing from Ryan Murphy’s team.
DOUBLE FEATURE
In tribute to the double-billings of old that hold a special place in horror history, AHS’ tenth season
was two stories for the price of one. Red Tide follows a horde of hungry artists in Provincetown,
MA, who take a mysterious pill to unlock the full range of their talents (side effects may include
vampirism). Meanwhile, in Death Valley, a friend group’s desert vacation goes sideways when they
get impregnated by aliens.
RED TIDE
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For Red Tide’s coastal bloodsuckers, Cooper latched onto the image of meat decorated with
dripping blood. “I have a cinematographer, Farhad Akhmetov, and I sent him to the butcher’s. I
guess we got carried away.” The sequence has an especially quick rhythm, where cryptic close-ups
of typewriters, syringes, and violins (all clues for the story to come) blend together. “Work like that requires more editorial precision. A lot of things I wanted to include were better off captured with
stock footage, and so the edit was naturally faster.”
DEATH VALLEY
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For Death Valley, Cooper returned to body horror. “The script mentioned the aliens having
tentacles, so we got a squid. The sequence came from a visual I imagined of the alien squirming
around in something like water.” In a mix of CGI and practical effects, the squids’ tentacles
undulate against a black background and menacingly wrap around naked bodies. Soon, they become
grotesque pseudo-umbilical cords for extraterrestrial babies. If you weren’t scared of alien
pregnancy before, thanks to Cooper, you surely are now.
NYC
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With its pioneering representation, AHS has long spotlighted the LGBTQ+ community with
complex, fully-rendered characters. In its 11th season, the horror is centred entirely on the
AIDS crisis in 1981 New York City. The ensemble cast of queer characters are hunted by Big
Daddy, an extremely brawny killer dressed in BDSM wear, who is as sexy as he is deadly. We’ll
leave it to you to work out the metaphor.
By far the most sombre season, NYC is a poignant exploration of the wide, messy web of trauma
left by the AIDS crisis while still retaining the show’s extreme, pulpy violence. In another dynamic
sequence that replicates the pace of Red Tide, Cooper juxtaposes imagery to evoke the
uncomfortable mixture of queer sexuality and disease. Muscular bodies are quickly replaced with
emaciated torsos; a mouth waiting at a glory hole is followed by a microscopic view of a virus
replicating.
With a rich education in graphic design - not to mention sequences for hundreds of films under his
belt - Cooper has an eye for picking the right details in a story to foreground in the titles. While Big
Daddy is the season’s chief villain, Cooper honed in on the secondary antagonist: the Mai Tai Killer,
who spikes gay men’s drinks before murdering them. “There are plenty of shots of leather, but I
wanted the umbrella in the Mai Tai to be the primary thread for the sequence. So I distorted it and
created some kaleidoscopic imagery where it splits into cells and becomes a multiplying virus.”
DELICATE
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Having just finished airing this Spring, the 12th season saw the series scaring audiences more than a
decade after its premiere. If 1984 is AHS meets Friday the 13th, then Delicate is AHS meets
Rosemary’s Baby. The satanic pregnancy plot remains but, naturally, Kim Kardashian has been
added to the mix.
While Death Valley’s sequence dipped its toes into pregnancy horror, with Delicate Cooper jumps
all the way in. Sharp surgical tools, a hospital bed overflowing with blood, a pram on fire. There’s
even a demonic stork. Holding the titles together is its most alarming element: a sinister force
rumbling in a woman’s belly.
“I didn’t know if it would be absurd to show a pregnant woman,” Cooper admits. “Would it be
inappropriate?” Despite the hesitation, his cinematographer’s wife was pregnant. “So Farhad shot
her torso, and everything else was CG. The stirrups, the spider crawling across her belly. There was
a lot of animation in that.”
For myself, and I’m sure many other viewers, the particular brand of body horror struck a nerve.
When I tell him it’s the sequence that terrified me the most, Cooper thanks me for the kind words.
—
Today, Cooper sees more people making title sequences, and more audience attention paid to them.
Still, there are drawbacks to modern spectatorship—like the ubiquitous “skip titles” button on
streaming platforms. “It’s offensive for a title designer to have that be an option. Maybe it makes
sense when bingeing TV, but you wouldn’t skip the title sequence for Se7en. It’s the first scene in
the movie! It would be like a button reading ‘skip first scene of the film.’”
Phantasmag, for one, would never skip the titles to Se7en. Since that breakthrough, Cooper and
Prologue have left an indelible mark on the medium across all genres, with a notable contribution to
horror film and television. We’ll be waiting for the beautiful scares he conjures up in Season 13.
To read our interview with Kyle in print
with graphic design by Jack Rogers,
as well as interviews with
Jane Wildgoose (costume designer, Hellraiser),
Gretchen Felker-Martin (author, Manhunt),
and more,
order issue 001 now