University Libraries

By Tina Beis

The University Libraries’ on-demand streaming service is crawling with vampires, zombies, suspense and sinister surprises. Throw open the graveyard gates with your UD login and password, cozy up with a pumpkin spice latte and prepare for a scare. Here’s just a sampling of low-budget thrills, frightening films and supernatural sagas that lurk in the Kanopy catalog:

What We Do In the Shadows (2014)

This vampire comedy, nominated for Best Horror Film at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films and winner of the People's Choice Award in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness Program, features housemates Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav, three vampires trying to get by in modern society, from paying rent and doing housework to trying to get invited into nightclubs. When their 8,000-year-old roommate Petyr turns human hipster Nick into a vampire, the guys must guide him through his newfound eternal life.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

A disparate group of individuals takes refuge in an abandoned house when corpses begin to rise from the graveyard. The pragmatic Ben does his best to control the situation, but when the reanimated bodies surround the house, the other survivors begin to panic.

Lavender (2016)

Jane has photographed old and abandoned farmhouses for as long as she can remember. It's a hobby bordering on obsession that has bloomed into a successful career. One day she photographs a particular house … and everything changes. Jane must weave together scattered strands of memory to solve a mystery hiding 20 years in the past.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Mary Henry rises from the water after a drag-racing crash in a rural Kansas town and takes a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. Day by day, she encounters eerie, macabre and mysterious people and situations before a bizarre apparition lures her to an abandoned lakeside carnival.

My Friend Dahmer (2017)

Based on the acclaimed graphic novel, this is the haunting, sad, true story of the high school days of one of America's infamous serial killers.

Memento (2000)

Leonard is tracking down the man who murdered his wife. The difficulty, however, of locating his wife's killer is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of memory loss.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Strange things are afoot in Bad City. The Iranian ghost town reeks of death and hopelessness, and a lonely vampire is stalking the town’s most unsavory inhabitants. But when boy meets girl, an unusual love story begins to blossom … blood red.

The Alchemist Cookbook (2016)

Young outcast Sean has isolated himself in a trailer in the woods with his cat Kaspar. When he turns from chemistry to black magic to crack nature's secrets, things go awry, and he awakens something sinister and dangerous.

Donnie Darko (2001)

Gifted with a sharp intellect and vivid imagination, Donnie Darko is an adolescent from a semi-functional, upper-middle-class family. Donnie's off his medication, and when his boredom is obliterated by a falling aircraft engine, he becomes increasingly delusional and convinced the world will end in 28 days. Aided by an imaginary friend, he embarks on an crazed series of actions.

Accessing Kanopy

To view even more horror and thriller films, sign in at https://udayton.kanopy.com/catalog/movies/horror-thriller with your University credentials.

— Tina Beis is the discovery services librarian in the University Libraries.