Kanopy Staff Pick – Halloween Horror
It’s that time of year again! The leaves are changing, the air is cooler, every food imaginable gets a pumpkin spice makeover, and it’s time to queue up some horror films to set that Halloween mood. We’ve consulted a wide variety of watch styles amongst the Kanopy team to bring you everything from the twisted to the gothic to the macabre to horrific – and even a few titles for the scaredy cats out there.
Longlegs (2024)
United States only
In this chilling horror-thriller directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), Nicolas Cage stars as a mysterious serial killer known only as “Longlegs.” When a young FBI agent (Maika Monroe) is assigned to the case, she becomes obsessed with uncovering his twisted motivations. As she delves deeper, she discovers unsettling ties between the killer’s past and her own.
Why We Recommend It: For an unnerving ’90s-set FBI procedural that keeps getting stranger and more occult-minded, with Maika Monroe holding the center and Nicolas Cage delivering one of the most bizarrely unforgettable performances of his career.
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Watching Goodnight Mommy on Kanopy
United States & Canada only
In the heat of the summer. A lonesome house in the countryside between woods and corn fields. Nine-year-old twin brothers are waiting for their mother.
Why We Recommend It: Creepy-kid horror gets a sun-blasted European twist as two twins become convinced the heavily bandaged woman who returns home from surgery is not really their mother.
The Wolf House (2018)
Watch The Wolf House on Kanopy
United States & Canada only
Maria, a girl from Colonia Dignidad, in Chile –a kind of sectarian community, tyrannically mastered by the ruthless Paul Schafer, a German madman, religious fanatic and child predator, who would end up turning the place into a torture center at the service of the military dictatorship ruled by Augusto Pinochet–, is punished for having lost three pigs, so she decides to run away and take refuge in an abandoned house hidden in the forest.
Why We Recommend It: Unlike anything else you’ll see this October, this Chilean nightmare uses constantly mutating stop-motion, paint, and papier-mâché to turn a real-life cult horror story into a waking fever dream.
Seconds (1966)
United States only
Desperate to escape his life, Arthur succumbs to a mysterious organization’s offer of a new identity and a fresh start. Surgically transformed into the handsome, young Tony Wilson, he begins a jet-set existence among a community of “Reborns.” Nominated for Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Why We Recommend It: For existential horror at its finest, John Frankenheimer’s chilling black-and-white masterpiece turns a Faustian second chance into a paranoid nightmare of identity and regret, based on the novel by David Ely.
Knife + Heart (2018)
United States & Canada only
Paris, Summer 1979. Anne (Vanessa Paradis) produces third-rate gay pornography. After her editor and lover Lois leaves her, she tries to win her back by shooting her most ambitious film yet with her trusted, flaming sidekick Archibald. But one of her actors is brutally murdered and Anne gets caught up in a strange investigation that turns her life upside-down. Shot on 35mm and featuring a killer retro score from M83, KNIFE+HEART is an ultra-stylish and blood-soaked ode to ’70s-era De Palma, Argento, and Friedkin. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. “It feels like a giallo take on “Phantom of the Paradise,” with heavy influences from “Peeping Tom” and Todd Haynes’ 1991 feature debut, “Poison.” This magical, erotic, disco-tinged horror-thriller is like cinematic candy.“- Katie Walsh, The Los Angeles Times
Why We Recommend It: Set in the neon-soaked summer of 1979 in Paris, Yann Gonzalez’s queer giallo-slasher follows Vanessa Paradis’s gay-porn producer into a murder mystery fueled by 35mm texture, De Palma-Argento excess, and an irresistible M83 score.
Bad Samaritan (2018)
United States & Canada only
A valet car park develops a scam to burglarize the houses of restaurant customers. Things go smoothly until he robs the wrong man and discovers a woman being held captive. Afraid of going to jail, he calls the police who find nothing when they investigate. Now the valet must endure the wrath of the kidnapper who seeks revenge on him while desperately trying to find and rescue the captive woman he left behind.
Why We Recommend It: Want to ruin the image of David Tennant as Doctor Who in your head? Here he weaponizes his charm and amps up the menace when a routine burglary spirals into a nerve-shredding game of cat-and-mouse.
Tales of Halloween (2015)
Watch Tales of Halloween on Kanopy
United States only
Ten stories from horror’s top directors. Ghosts, ghouls, monsters, and the devil delight in terrorizing unsuspecting residents of a suburban neighborhood on Halloween night.
Why We Recommend It: Save this lively anthology for October 31, when 10 directors tell 10 interconnected stories of ghosts, ghouls, monsters, killers, and suburban mischief, all unfolding on Halloween night and hitting exactly the right spooky-season note.
Cropsey (2009)
United States & Canada only
Realizing the urban legend of their youth has actually come true; two filmmakers delve into the mystery surrounding five missing children and the real-life boogeyman linked to their disappearances. Official Selection at the Tribeca Film Festival and Fantastic Fest. Nominated for Best Documentary at the Chicago International Film Festival. “Cropsey has all the trappings of a true-crime TV special, but with an undercurrent of cultural exposition that is intelligent, profound and unsettling.” – John Anderson, Variety
Why We Recommend It: Part urban-legend documentary and part true-crime investigation, this fascinating rabbit hole proves that the real story can be scarier than the myth.
Sinister (2012)
United States only
Ethan Hawke is a crime novelist who moves his family into a home with a horrific past. But when he uncovers a box of mysterious home movies that seem to point to unspeakable terrors, he unlocks a nightmare that threatens his entire family.
Why We Recommend It: Ethan Hawke has spent a decent chunk of his career doing horror films, and this one is up there with the best of those. A desperate true-crime writer discovers a box of Super 8 murder films and turns his career comeback into a seriously unnerving supernatural nightmare.
Suspiria (1977)
United States & Canada only
A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the school is a front for something far more sinister and supernatural amidst a series of grisly murders. SUSPIRIA is Italian Horror-master Dario Argento’s best-known and most acclaimed film. “It’s always fascinating to watch; the thrills and spills are so classy and fast that the movie becomes in effect what horror movies seemed like when you were too young to get in to see them.” – Scott Meek, Time Out
Why We Recommend It: For pure audiovisual witchcraft, Dario Argento’s candy-colored fever dream, where Jessica Harper’s American ballet student attends a West German academy ruled by secrets. And you get an iconic score from Goblin!
Scream (1996)
Publishes October 1. United States only.
Legendary director Wes Craven re-invented and revitalized the slasher-horror genre with this funny, clever and scary first film in the hit franchise. After a series of mysterious deaths, an offbeat group of scary movie fans become the target of a masked killer. As the body count begins, it’s clear that the rules must be followed, and everyone’s a suspect. David Arquette, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, and Drew Barrymore star in this semi-satire, all-scares first instalment.
Why We Recommend It: Funny, scary, endlessly quotable, and still razor-sharp, Wes Craven’s slasher classic remains the gold standard for horror films that know exactly how horror films work.
Oddity (2024)
United States & Canada only
In the supernatural horror thriller, twin sisters Dani & Darcy Odello (both played by Carolyn Bracken) are at the story’s chilling core. Dani’s brutal murder a year ago consigning Darcy, now blind and gifted with psychometric ability, to the role of investigator and avenger. As Darcy visits the country house owned by her sister’s husband Ted (Gwilym Lee) and his new girlfriend, a life-sized wooden golem arrives in a crate from her curiosities shop, and the quiet night mutates into a labyrinth of lies, haunted objects, and vengeful spirits.
Why We Recommend It: Before Irish auteur Damian McCarthy gave us 2026’s Hokum, he unsettled us with this tightly wound folk nightmare that follows a blind medium and collector of cursed objects as she investigates her twin sister’s mysterious death.
Hell House LLC (2015)
Watch Hell House LLC on Kanopy
United States & Canada only
In this found-footage horror film, a documentary crew investigates the mysterious tragedy that struck a Halloween haunted house attraction in Abaddon, New York, where fifteen people died on opening night. As they piece together footage left behind by the Hell House crew, a chilling story of escalating terror unfolds inside the abandoned hotel.
Why We Recommend It: Found footage is a sub-genre uniquely suited to horror, in this case a group of 20-somethings are opening a haunted-house attraction in an abandoned upstate New York hotel. A hotel that might have been abandoned for a reason.
Whether your patrons are in the mood for an occult mystery, a stylish giallo, a cult classic, or a true story stranger than any legend, there’s somethingin our Crypt Collection to fill their October nights!