Wellington Paranormal was dubbed 'Police Ten 7 meets The X-Files' . These excerpts from episodes three and five of the first season demonstrate the show's mix of deadpan commentary with (sometimes) mysterious subject matter. Officers O'Leary (played by Karen O'Leary) and Minogue (Mike Minogue) deal with two call outs. A report of a pale, translucent figure floating 'airily' around a Lower Hutt car park is the definition of an 'open and shut 'case, but a stake out in a supposedly haunted house isn't so straightforward. Officer Minogue's enthusiasm for tasers comes a cropper too. 

This hit TV series was spawned from big screen mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows (2014). After stumbling across the vampiric goings-on of the original movie, dim-witted police officers Minogue (Mike Minogue) and O'Leary (Karen O'Leary) are enlisted by a paranormal obsessed sergeant (Maaka Pohatu from The Modern Māori Quartet) to investigate unusual events— from cows up trees, to werewolves and zombie cops. Six episodes debuted on TVNZ 2 in 2018; four were directed by Shadows co-creator Jemaine Clement. A second season followed in 2019.    

Series Ghost Hunt made dead of night visits to locales with a reputation for being haunted. The trio of presenters became paranormal investigators, trying to detect ghosts in iconic locations across New Zealand. In this excerpt, the crew visit St James Theatre in central Wellington, and discover a number of mysterious lights on their footage. The presenters are former What Now? host Carolyn Taylor, actor Michael Hallows, and team leader Brad Hills, who would go on to direct and star in 2015 romantic comedy Excess Baggage.

Filmmaking team Jason Stutter and Kevin Stevens plunge back into the paranormal with this feature, which sees three investigators arriving at a rundown farmhouse, to discover just how haunted it really is. The ghost hunters are played by screen veteran Jeffrey Thomas (Mercy Peak), Jed Brophy (The Hobbit) and Laura Petersen (Shopping). The Dead Room’s Halloween release saw a perfect storm of publicity, from a contest involving a special app which allowed contestants to photograph ghosts, to a video blogger who claimed to have tracked down the house where the movie was filmed. 

In 2001 New Zealander Paul Wolffram was in Papua New Guinea studying music for his PhD, when he began making films about the Lak people he was staying with. Fifteen years later he headed back for another film, utilising his connection with the Lak to undergo a gruelling initiation into the world of Buai magic. The experience involved dehydration, fasting and isolation over the course of five days, with the intent of enhancing creative powers. What Lies that Way is set to get its world premiere at the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival.

Peter Jackson’s fifth feature is a playful blend of comedy, thriller and supernatural horror and was an effective Hollywood calling card for Weta FX. Frank Bannister (Michael J Fox) resides in Fairwater, where he runs a supernatural scam. Aided by some spectral consorts, he engineers hauntings and “exorcises” the ghosts for a fee. When a genuine spook starts knocking off the locals, the FBI suspects Frank is the culprit. To clear his name, Frank must deal to the real perpetrator – none other than the Grim Reaper ...

With web series The Watercooler, the audience provides the stories (by submitting them online). Each episode sees true tales reenacted, as far-fetched yarns get shared over the office watercooler. The stories range widely, from a nurse engaging in an ill-fated arm-wrestle with a patient, to trouble with “urinal politics”. The Watercooler was created by actor Mike Minogue, who also appears in a number of episodes. The cast features Cohen Holloway, Jonathan Brugh and Abby Damen. For the second season, Minogue's Wellington Paranormal co-star Karen O’Leary was added to the mix.

Lucy Lewis (Thomasin McKenzie) just can’t lose — which is a real problem, since she's determined not to be elected school representative. But with principal Ms Palmer (played by McKenzie’s real life mum Miranda Harcourt) determined to ruin student life at the school, Lucy's position becomes a way to keep Ms Palmer's power in check. The second season of this web series sees the school overrun by Instagram, and the cyberbullying that can come with it. McKenzie later co-starred in American feature Leave No Trace. Director Paul Yates would help launch Wellington Paranormal.