Peter- The last 6 years or so, I’ve become a massive horror fan. My girlfriend introduced me to the genre and we have seen so many together. I knew I wanted to make a horror short. I started reading about crime scene cleaning online. I had never heard of the profession, but I found it an intriguing in to a story. I started researching crime scene cleaning companies from around the world and I realized they all shared the basic qualification needed to do the job: a strong stomach. That made me think of a character who struggles with that and essentially has a damaged stomach. I related to the idea of how you can hold emotions, anxiety, and trauma in your stomach. The film stems from a fear of mine where if you repress and build up emotional trauma over time how it can lead to dangerous effects. That’s where the body horror elements come in.
How did you feel when you found out that STOMACH IT was part of Panic Fest 2025.
Peter- I was really happy! For years, I’ve heard Panic Fest is a really fun, personable festival that has great programming and opportunities for filmmakers. I found that all to be true. Adam and Tim do such a great job fostering this genre- loving community. The Panic Fest audience was so energetic during screenings. That passion made the festival a blast.
What are you working on next?
Peter- I’ve been working on a surreal home invasion short/feature. The horror genre is a really personal way for me to analyze what makes me anxious and scared in the world. I often have home invasion nightmares and can remember them vividly. I had this nightmare where my girlfriend and I were stuck in our apartment facing the front door. Outside the front door, there was somebody with a sledgehammer trying to break the locks in. My girlfriend and I couldn’t escape in the apartment because our feet were stuck to the hardwood floor. So, we were essentially helpless waiting for the inevitable. The person broke in and then, I woke up from the nightmare drenched in sweat. I want this next project to feel like that.
The special effects are great in STOMACH IT. What can you tell us about the effects.
Peter- As I wrote more drafts, it became more apparent that I needed a practical effects artist for the film. There was so much trial and error with the effects. The pressure was only having 1 or 2 takes to do it on set. The effects really pushed me to be creative. Prior script drafts had been more reliant on sound, but we utilized body horror to visualize the character’s psychological state. I started watching a lot of body horror movies like Videodrome. I love how crazy and imaginative 80s effects are. Our practical effects artist made us various abominable props including a stomach air bladder. That’s a latex stomach shaped balloon that when inflated, looks like a pulsating stomach. I really wanted a shot where it looks like the mattress is protruding out in the background, while the main character is in the foreground. My producer and I didn’t know how to pull off that effect. But, we ended up hiring a carpenter, who made us a 3d wooden stomach. Then, on set, we cut a hole in a mattress topper, puppeteer the wooden stomach through, and had some red light underneath. So, it created this pulsating mattress effect. Our set was also a bit of a chemistry experiment. Crime scene cleaners use a 12% hydrogen peroxide spray to detect and disinfect blood. The blood foams up when it reacts to the spray. I wanted to do this effect on set but we struggled to figure it out. We ended up utilizing elephant toothpaste to create this effect. That’s a chemical reaction that happens when yeasty water reacts to hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, sugar, water, etc. We utilized that several times throughout the short.
What do you want to say to everyone who will be watching Stomach It?
Peter- I hope you can stomach it.
What was it like working with everyone?
Peter- We had such a great crew. It was filled with a lot of my close friends. I also became friends with so many people on the crew as well. One of the aspects of filmmaking that means the most are the friendships that are built through the process.