The opening credits were created by Kyle Cooper and his company Prologue, who also created the opening scenes for Seven and The Walking Dead.
Ryan Murphy said about the opening credits "The title sequence is almost like a mystery. By the time you see the ninth episode of this season, every image in that title sequence will be explained. So for example, What are the jars in the basement? What is the mystery of the floating white Christening dress? Why is somebody holding hedge clippers that are bloody? Each time you watch it and you watch the week's episode you'll be able to say, 'Oh that's why that's in there!'"[1]
The font used for the AHS logo is called "Rennie Mackintosh", after the Scottish Art Nouveau artist Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Ryan Murphy had wanted "Frank Lloyd Wright" font, after the American architect famous for his use of stained glass. Since Frank Lloyd Wright was influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the Prologue company suggested the Mackintosh font.
Kyle Cooper shot the basement scenes in the sub-basement of Mack Sennett Studios in Silverlake, California, a soundstage originally built in 1916. He decided to shoot the entire opening credits in the basement to provide the view of the infantata, who lives in the basement. The old pictures of children were included to show past owners who watched everything with innocent eyes.[2]
The song in the background was created by Cesar Davila-Irizarry, who is a friend of "Prologue" editor Gabriel Diaz, and musician Charlie Clouser, formerly of Nine Inch Nails and is called "American Horror Story". The song also gives clues to the show, for example, the ambient noises and the sound of dripping water along with a menacing voice whispering what sounds like "Hurt you", adapted by Lady Gaga for the trailer of American Horror Story: Hotel. (Maria).
Bloody gloves, possibly made of skin, picking organs (Bloody Face, also Jed Potter's eating of the disemboweled cow, possibly a reference to the aliens taking out embryos)
Operation with Sister Mary Eunice standing over (Mary Eunice and Doctor Arden's plan to electroshock Jude)
Nun climbing on top of bound patient (Mary Eunice's rape of the Monsignor)
Doctor suffocating patient (Dr. Arden killing then reviving patient to attract aliens)
Witch burnt at stake while white-clad witches dance (Myrtle Snow's burning)
Coven members clan in capirotes walking in a woodland
Imagery from Santa Muerte and Satanic works (Santa Muerte, also known as the Lady of the Seven Powers, was behind Sarah Paulson's name card in the opening sequence, showing that Cordelia was the next supreme)
Lily Rabe's name disintegrates as it transitions into the next shot, foreshadowing the final death of her character Misty Day.
Freak Show
American Horror Story Freak Show - Main Titles
Freak Show - Main Titles
Imagery featured in the Opening Credits are:
Skeleton chimera of a human-shaped like an elephant being riding a bike
Man with short legs limping, supported by his hands
Clown whose face is smiling, contorting into an evil laughing expression (Dandy Mott's psychosis)
Handicapped boy with deformed legs
Conjoined twins stuck onto dart board whilst darts are being thrown at them (Bette and Dot Tattler and Elsa Mars knife act)
Grady Stiles who was the real life Lobster Boy (reference to Jimmy Darling)
Clowns scattered throughout sequence
Demonic cymbal-banging monkey toy
A voodoo-like masked person wandering around
Man with nails fixated into his head using hammer to fix a signboard
A skeleton with a clown costume
Woman swallowing a sword
Nude woman with a leg sticking out of her vagina (Desiree Dupree, who is intersex)
Balloon twister popping balloons
Person swapping heads with one of a conjoined twin (Dot's desire to be separated from Bette so that she and Jimmy can be together)
Clown in sweater vest missing the top of his head (possibly Dandy Mott)
Man whose top is zipped down, causing his eye pupils to roll inside his head and black blood to pour from his mouth (Behind Kathy Bates name card, foreshadowing how Ethel Darling loses her head in staged death)
Conjoined twins kissing each other (Bette and Dot Tattler discovering their sexuality)
Hotel
American Horror Story Hotel Main Title Sequence
Hotel - Main Titles
Imagery featured in the Opening Credits are:
Hand reaching out through a hole in a wall (Rudolph and Natacha's entrapment and escape from the hidden hallway)
Blood pool on carpet spreading towards a pair of high heel-clad feet, maid scrubbing at the bloodstain (Hazel Evers)
Someone hand-painting in blood on a wall
Demonic figure posing seductively and caressing a woman (possibly Elizabeth)
A very pale, blond-haired little boy (One of Elizabeth's blood-drinking children)
Woman being pulled inside a mattress and a monstrous creature breaking out from within a mattress (Claudia Bankson being killed by Gabriel on her mattress, Sally sewing victims inside mattresses)
Ghostly apparition wearing a white dress with blood splattering over her (Elizabeth's wedding and murder of Will Drake)
Young woman turning into a skeleton (possibly Alex Lowe becoming infected with the Blood Virus)
Lingerie-clad woman
A human skull being picked up
Woman screaming as someone paints on her face with lipstick (Liz Taylor fighting her true sexuality)
Child wearing a gas mask (Virus outbreak caused by the school children)
Hotel hallways and scenes shown through a door viewer (scattered throughout sequence)
Roanoke
My Roanoke Nightmare
Return to Roanoke
The sixth installment of the series, subtitled Roanoke, is the first and so far only season not featuring an opening credits.
In its place, however, animated frames have been used to divide the season into two parts, each consisting of five episodes. The two halves are respectively "My Roanoke Nightmare" and "Return to Roanoke," mimicking the in-universe documentaries.
Cult
American Horror Story- Cult - Main Titles - FX
Cult - Main Titles
Imagery featured in the Opening Credits are:
Angel statue with a lyre and a shaking hand (Judgement House)
Bees on a honeycomb and a hand being dragged through them (Kai Anderson controlling the actions of the cult)
Scenes of Bloody hands being washed in a sink (Murder)
Scenes of bees and honeycombs (The Cult)
Holes in a neck and millipedes crawling amongst them (Ally's Trypophobia dream)
A man putting on a Donald Trump mask (Kai Anderson preparing for world domination after Trump wins)
A porcelain statue of George Washington in colonial attire and a porcelain woman with a flowing dress and a bell (representing Kai's want to be President and traditional values)
Men in hazmat suits carrying a coffin and clowns emerging from it (The coffin murders)
Man in hazmat suit carrying a dead dog in front of a carousel (Hazmat suit: Fake chemical trucks scaring citizens, Dead dog: death of loyalty at the end of the series or possibly resembling the planted dead birds on Ally Mayfair-Richards's lawn)
Tear gas (Police Raid)
Clowns sitting on a bus (Twisty the Clown)
A clown juggling knives (SCUM murders)
Men in hazmat suits (Fake chemical trucks scaring citizens)
Female clown in a top hat crying blood (Female members of the cult feeling persecuted and oppressed)
A carousel with clowns on the horses
A butcher with a bloody apron, drawing their butcher knife around their stomach (Ivy Mayfair-Richards cutting Harrison Wilton up in the butchery as part of SCUM)
A bloody American flag (The election being influenced by murder)
A magician pulling out a skinned, bloody rabbit from his top hat
Someone putting on a Hillary Clinton mask and wagging their finger
A couple covered in blood kissing (The sacred conception of the miracle child between Winter Anderson, Kai Anderson and Detective Jack Samuels)
A man wearing a beekeeper's mask (Harrison Wilton's work as a bee-keeper)
Hands in chains doing a "pinky promise" (Kai's pinky promise ritual)
Apocalypse
American Horror Story - Apocalypse (Official Opening Titles HD)-1
Apocalypse - Main Titles
Imagery featured in the Opening Credits are:
Snakes
Burning candles. Some candles are burnt in speed-up timelapse, some candles are blown then reversed, implying Mallory's time manipulation ability Tempus Infinituum.
Photographs
Cheyenne Jackson's namecard #1
Cheyenne Jackson's namecard #2
of nuclear-testing documents burning
Recorded nuclear explosions
A black scorpion
A blooming columbine
Old arts about witches and demons
Imagery from the first and third seasons' opening credits.
Namecards:
Sarah Paulson's namecard #1
Sarah Paulson's namecard #2, using footage from season 3, showing two figures, implying characters with supernatural abilities, Cordelia and Billie Dean
