Dexter
Although Showtime’s serial killer dark comedy wavered in quality as the show went on, one constant delight of Dexter was its macabre opening titles. It is an intoxicating opener that builds up sympathy for the show’s protagonist, a troubled blood spatter specialist who also happens to kill bad guys.
The opening invites us into his world, where a regular morning routine can take the guise of something much more sinister when a murderer is getting ready for his day. Whether is cutting himself shaving, slicing up eggs and ham or flossing, these mundane parts of one’s routine have a darker tone to them. It is hard not to relate these activities to Dexter’s life as a man who cuts up, stabs, suffocates and bloodies victims week after week.
Taken at close up, many of Dexter’s morning routines feel much darker and deranged – especially since we know the violence the protagonist is capable of. Watching a man slice a grapefruit from a distance is dull, but watching Dexter carve right into the fruit and seeing the juice flies out is unnerving.
It feels like everything that the character does during these titles, even tying his shoelaces, could be an action he uses later on to main, strangle or cut a bad guy. Michael C. Hall’s penetrating stare at the audience at the titles’ end, as if he is looking in the mirror, is both sinister and disheveled at once. Digital Kitchen, which designed the sequence with a lot of blood red hues, gets extra points for using the main star as part of the devilish introduction.