The Dead Lands to Enliven TVNZ OnDemand

TVNZ OnDemand will premiere its supernatural co-production The Dead Lands on January 24.

Shudder, AMC Networks’ premium streaming service for horror, thriller and the supernatural, announced it would launch the movie spin-off with two episodes on its US, Canadian, UK and Irish platforms on January 23.

Subsequent episodes will premiere on both Shudder and TVNZ OnDemand weekly.

The Dead Lands is billed as “a supernatural adventure set in a mythic Māori past, with an aesthetic that’s part Ash vs Evil Dead and part Xena: Warrior Princess“.

The series features a murdered Māori warrior who’s sent back to the world of the living to redeem his sins.

But the world Waka returns to is ravaged by a breach between Life and the Afterlife as the spirits of the newly dead now stalk the land and hunt the living.

“The Dead Lands film was a seminal New Zealand story that took the Māori martial art of Mau Raku to audiences around the world,” said executive producer Matthew Metcalfe when filming started last year.

“I am honoured to again lead a team of talented New Zealand actors and artisans to expand the world of the original film.”

The film’s original screenwriter Glenn Standring scripted the series, while the cast includes Te Kohe Tuhaka (6 Days), Kirk Torrance (Outrageous Fortune), Miriama Smith (Filthy Rich), Grace Palmer (Adrift) and newcomers Darneed Christian and Jordi Webber.

Watch the first-look teaser here.