TVNZ\u2019s new documentary introduces us to the everyday New Zealanders who have prepared for the end of the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The opening moments of Meet the Preppers feels like an unexpected sequel to The Blair Witch Project. The TVNZ documentary begins in the dark of night with an extreme close-up of a woman\u2019s terrified face. \u201cJesus,\u201d she whispers, looking behind her nervously. The handheld camera shakes as we glimpse a medley of bizarre images: a gnarled tree branch, some drooping leaves, what appears to be a tarpaulin. A mysterious buzzing sound is the final straw. \u201cWhat the fuck?\u201d the woman says, before fleeing the hellscape she\u2019s found herself in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a dramatic start to a documentary about one woman\u2019s efforts to find out how to survive a major disaster. Self-confessed catastrophiser Kylie is a mother of three (\u201cfour, if you count my giant man-child partner\u201d) who spends a lot of time on social media, freaking out that the world is ending. She worries in front of the fire and she frets on the toilet, contemplating deadly pandemics, cyclones and nuclear war with an ever-increasing feeling of doom. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have a clue what to do,\u201d Kylie admits, as she dons a World War II gas mask and enjoys a quiet moment of existential crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Survivalist Clay helps Kylie prepare for a night in the wild (Photo: TVNZ)<\/p>\n
But Kylie (we\u2019re never told her last name, but spoiler alert: she also presents the NZ Seniors insurance ads on morning broadcast TV) isn\u2019t about to take the end of the world sitting down on the toilet. She decides to travel around the country to unpack the go-bags of everyday New Zealanders who have already prepared for the worst, in the hope that she\u2019ll learn a few life-saving tips and tricks. First, she meets Paul, a \u201cbug-out\u201d prepper who\u2019s ready to leave his home quickly when danger strikes, and can load his van in under 20 minutes with everything he needs to make a hasty departure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got some weaponry here, if you need it,\u201d Paul says, as he welcomes Kylie into his saloon filled with animal skulls and crossbows. Paul has six go-bags at the ready, and reveals that the 1984 Queen Street riot showed him how badly people behave when the social order is broken. He plans to escape to somewhere far from other people, and calmly reveals his plan to hurt intruders by building a booby trap with sharpened sticks inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you start talking to people about this, they think you\u2019re a bit kooky,\u201d Paul warns. Tell that to Wellington \u201cbug-in\u201d prepper Richard, who\u2019s preparing to stay indoors during a crisis until it\u2019s safe to leave. Paul has 100kg of flour stashed around his house at all times, and shows us his \u201cshed of food chaos\u201d filled with chilli flakes, large bags of rice and lollipops. Moments after Richard admits that people might say his approach is \u201cway nuts\u201d, he gives Kylie a fake knife and a quick lesson on the deck about how to defend herself in a fight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paul and Richard are two of the more committed preppers in the documentary, but Kylie also meets other New Zealanders who are preparing to help entire communities. She visits a Whang\u0101rei marae that joined with other iwi to install an emergency mobile bunker full of life-saving radios, water and freeze-dried meals, and Wellington group DIRT, who meet regularly to role-play how to respond to different civil defence emergencies. It\u2019s a collective approach all about resilience and self-sufficiency, and a reminder that being prepared doesn\u2019t mean doing it by yourself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nelson survivalist Clay and Kylie in Meet the Preppers (Photo: TVNZ)<\/p>\n
No matter how extreme the survivalists in Meet the Preppers might be, they all have something in common: being prepared gives them peace of mind. That\u2019s why Kylie decides to spend a night in the wild, with the assistance of Nelson survivalist Clay Tall Stories, where we find out what made Kylie panic at the start of the documentary. \u201cThere are so many noises I can\u2019t identify,\u201d she tells the camera from inside her shelter, as native birds sing outside. Then, the worst happens. For all those existential crises Kylie worried about while sitting on the loo, a lone wasp entering her shelter was not one of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kylie admits she\u2019s taking baby steps towards becoming a prepper, and who can\u2019t relate to that?\u00a0Meet the Preppers offers a light, humourous insight into the skills and equipment we need to survive an emergency, and while most of us can\u2019t afford to build a bunker in our back garden, the documentary\u2019s easy tone makes a serious topic accessible to viewers. You won\u2019t feel any better about the end of the world, but Meet The Preppers makes it clear that being even a little bit prepared is a better option.<\/p>\n
And if you find yourself still worrying about things that might never happen, perhaps we should listen to the friends of Hokitika prepper Alesha. When Kylie revealed how much she catastrophises while on social media, their solution to worrying about the end of the world was simple. \u201cStop scrolling,\u201d they said. \u201cPut your phone down, and go and enjoy life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meet the Preppers streams on TVNZ+.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TVNZ\u2019s new documentary introduces us to the everyday New Zealanders who have prepared for the end of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[859,156,111,139,69,1066,6445],"class_list":["post-607969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-documentary","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pop-culture","tag-tvnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}