In director Garth Maxwell’s 1993 gothic horror twins Jack and Dora (late US actor Alexis Arquette and Kiwi Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) are separated while young; their adult reunion sees them battling the trauma of their past while being pursued by Jack’s sadistic step sisters. Complete with ESP, and a steam-driven hypnosis machine, Maxwell makes an exuberant and surreal contribution to the cinema of unease. New York Times’ Stephen Holden lauded the heady head-spinner as “a superior genre film” with a “feverish intensity that recalls scenes from Hitchcock and De Palma.” 

Praising novel The Scarecrow, one critic argued that author Ronald Hugh Morrieson had melded genres together into “a brilliant, hallucinatory mixture distinctively his own". The movie adaptation is another unusual melding; a coming of age tale awash with comedy, nostalgia, and a touch of the gothic. Taranaki teen Ned (Jono Smith) is worried that the mysterious arrival in town (US acting legend John Carradine) has murderous designs on his sister. The masterful narration is by Martyn Sanderson. The result: the first Kiwi film to win official selection at the Cannes Film Festival.

In this first feature film from writer/director Greg Page, two urban bloke best friends (Johnny Barker and Dwayne Cameron) take off on a surfing weekend. Their prospects of finding fun go down with the sun. Instead of enjoying surf and black sand, the boys find themselves lost in a rural nightmare, battling an inescapable curse. Page, known for his high energy music videos, wheel-spins city limits phobia into the Waikato heartland for a Kiwi twist on horror genre thrills. Website Horrorview called it "different and inventive enough to stand out from the crowd." 

Sixties talent show Have A Shot began as an Ian Watkins radio slot on 1ZB. The popular TV version began in Auckland in 1961, and expanded to include competitors in Wellington and Christchurch the following year. This final from 1964 sees eight regional winners compete for £300, by performing two prerecorded songs each. The judges are 200 voters from the four main centres. The listening is easy, across genres ranging from folk songs to country ballads. The host is radio veteran John Maybury. Note: the winner is not revealed. Have a Shot was replaced by New Faces in 1965.

Built around generous stacks of live footage, this 70 minute documentary traces the journey of beloved, genre-blending band TrinityRoots. It explores touring, epic album sessions, and the bond  — both light-hearted and deeply felt — between members Warren Maxwell, Rio Hemopo and Riki Gooch. Other musicians and critic Grant Smithies play tribute. The documentary chimed in with the band's rebirth: TrinityRoots reformed in 2010 after five years apart, the same year that the Music is Choice documentary/live album emerged. Gooch left the trio the following year.

Edgar Allen Poe's tales of murder, burial, and ominous ravens have inspired movies, nightmares ... and an eclectic musical suite by saxophonist Lucien Johnson, which he first performed live with Wellington’s Village of the Idiots. With the aid of some home-cooked CGI, director Geoff Murphy mixes concert footage, fantastical imagery, interviews and spoken word to put it on screen. Family and friends help round out the crew. The results echo Murphy's early, genre-stretching days with ensemble Blerta, this time with themes of mortality mixing in with the horns.

Director Nic Gorman won best short at the 2013 NZ Film Awards for zombie tale Here Be Monsters. With his first feature he shifts horror genres to the psychological thriller, as a mysterious new arrival (Vinnie Bennett) disturbs subantarctic island life for a husband and wife scientist team (Fantail's Sophie Henderson and Siege's Mark Mitchinson). Human Traces debuted at the 2017 NZ International Film Festival. NZ Herald reviewer George Fenwick praised the "stunning cinematography" and "impressive performances", arguing they helped produce a "fine debut" for Gorman.

This film contrasts impressions of two places over the course of a day: Mana Island and Wellington city. Two young climbers (a teacher and a gardener) row out to the island while the sun rises and the city wakes up. Over smokes and beer, the men discuss why they climb. Evocative shots of their rockface ascent are paralleled with shots of city bustle: traffic, Radio Windy DJs and new high rises. The genre of dramatised documentary was relatively new when cinematographer Waka Attewell made this film — his directorial debut. It was mainly shot over two weekends in 1973.

WA$TED gave an eco twist to the DIY renovation genre, by giving homes a green makeover. In this first episode the young family learning about sustainability are the Petelos, a household that guzzles gas and churns out trash. Patrick Petelo learns that if his example (taking the train a couple of days a week) was widely followed, Aotearoa’s carbon emissions would be reduced by 15%. Created by Carthew Neal, the show's format sold overseas, including to US channel Planet Green (now Destination America). Co-presenter Francesca Price later launched sustainability mag Good. 

The writing and drawing of comic books has remained a little-known and under-rated area of New Zealand culture. Director Shirley Horrocks reveals it as a highly creative subculture with a rich local history. Eric Resetar, the grand old man of local comics, discusses the moral panic brought on by comics in the 1940s and 1950s; and other artists of the genre, such as Barry Linton, Dick Frizzell, Coco and Dylan (Hicksville) Horrocks, explore the wide variety of stories that have been drawn, framed and speech-ballooned since then.