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Marieke Peeters (1997) is interested in the relationship between horror and being comfortable, more specifically in the mechanisms of body horror, a genre that prompts discussions about human experiences like sorrow, fear, pain, and trauma. Peeters: ‘Horror never shies away from the atrocities of the human experience; the monsters we create say a lot about who we are. That is why it is such an amazing tool to reflect on these horrible times.’
For her film The Forgotten Sacrifice (2025), Peeters researched the roles of spirits and ghost stories in the popular Japanese haunted house tradition known as obake yashiki. The film’s narrative is based on the Shiomi legend from the Japanese island of Ojika, a tale about a curious human sacrifice ritual held in times of adversity. For this work, Peeters transformed an akiya (Japanese for uninhabited house) into a space where the local history is made tangible. She searched for ways to pass on ancient legends to newer generations before they fall into oblivion. The accessible theme of the (haunted) house provided her with a medium that also relates to her interest in expanded cinema. Stretching the boundaries of cinema, she completely immerses the spectator in her work, enabling them to step into the story, as it were. Peeters follows the rules of the Japanese haunted house tradition to the letter and evokes an indirect sense of suspense. Among other things, she achieves this through her unorthodox way of handling materials to create strange textures and patterns that enhance the nature of her scenes and characters.
Text: Esther Darley
Translated from Dutch by Marie Louise Schoondergang (The Art of Translation)