Ao-terror-oa: Kiwi Filmmakers Bring You 6 Weeks of Horror

For every horror fan, there’s something deliciously fun about Halloween: it’s a chance to indulge in your favourite horror films and check out some potential new favourites. But November 1st hits, the costumes are put away and it’s all over, Rover.

This year, however, H2Ow Productions is being your ghoulish fairy godparent and bringing you an entire 6 weeks of horror to relish and enjoy. Starting October 27 New Zealand Time (October 26 Northern Hemisphere Time), H2Ow Productions brings you Ao-terror-oa, a new anthology of short horror films linked by one element – New Zealand culture. The shorts cover a wide range of subjects, from sunburn to rugby. They also range in tone from tense to outright gross, most of them containing the perverse sense of humour that Kiwis are famous for. In fact, the title Ao-terror-oa is a play on the Māori word for New Zealand, Aotearoa.

The series is the brainchild of Hweiling Ow, creator of numerous short horrors on YouTube and Facebook, who has recently received Film Commission funding for a round targeting women in horror. Her short film Vaspy, a twisted take on the iconic NZ Buzzy Bee toy, will be shooting in November. Ao-terror-oa was funded by NZ on Air and Google as part of the Skip Ahead Fund. The six shorts that make up the series are directed by Peter Haynes and Nick Burridge and co-produced by Johnathan Guest, Jocelyn Bunch and Monique Hoseason.

Screening alongside the shorts on the series’ YouTube channel will be two additional mini-series, ‘Hweiling Watches’, where producer Hweiling Ow (Who ironically doesn’t enjoy watching horror) hilariously reacts to watching horror while hooked up to a heart monitor, and ‘Body FX Basement of Horror’, where Jules and Yolanda from Body FX (an Auckland-based makeup company) give makeup tips in their own unique style.

The fun starts soon, so be prepared to be scared!