GHOST HOUSE Rewriting the ‘Haunted’ Narrative in Florian Habicht’s Spookers

Berlin-born, New Zealand–raised writer/director Florian Habicht isn’t one for following traditional narratives. An artist by training and inspired by the Swinging Sixties photography of his famous father, Frank, he’s a self-taught filmmaker who revels in experimentation born of a sprightly fascination with getting out and just doing.

I meet Habicht in the bustling foyer of a Spring Street hotel during the Melbourne International Film Festival; his gangly appearance, eccentric fashion and mullet, capped with a feathered hat, match his reputation. He chuckles as we look out of a floor-to-ceiling window at the arched facade of the Old Treasury Building. ‘I always had my own camera,’ he tells me. ‘I loved to get out and shoot something, and then try and make sense of it – get some funding to complete it and write it more in the edit.’ It’s unsurprising, then, that his latest documentary, Spookers (2017), bears little resemblance to the film he originally pitched in funding applications.

Initially envisioned as a profile of kooky former sheep farmers Beth and Andy Watson and their abandoned plans to expand their eponymous Auckland haunted-house attraction to Melbourne, Spookers arose following a suggestion from Madman Entertainment’s Suzanne Walker, who went on to become a producer on the film. She had heard New Zealand friends raving about the