Man Finds Buried Film From 1929, Regrets It When He Sees What It’s Hiding

His imagination begins to run away with him as he carefully pries open the back of the machine. “Show me your secrets,” he whispers to it, cracking a smile to lighten the heavy mood in the room. But then, he can’t believe his eyes.

Inside the camera is a reel of film that hasn’t seen the light of day for 100 years.

Obsession

Martijn van Oers, a Netherlands native and photographer, was infatuated with photography from a young age. He was particularly drawn to old photographs – especially when they had an eerie or sinister undercurrent.

So, when he received his first camera on his 12th birthday, he couldn’t have been happier. Naturally, his mother was worried. And she was right to be.

A Morbid Pastime

You see, Martijn wasn’t like other children. Instead of spending time with friends and participating in normal activities for a boy his age, Martijn chose to spend his time alone.

He’d wander through the streets of Breda, photographing the old crumbling buildings and exploring abandoned places. To his mother’s dismay, his obsession with what she perceived to be macabre only grew as the years passed.

The Dark Side

When Martijn was a teenager, his walls were filled with the photographs he had collected. From floor to ceiling, photographs took up every inch of wall space. But these weren’t “happy-snaps”, as his mother liked to say.

Rather, they were snapshots of the town’s darker side. Some he had taken himself, but others were photos he had found in thrift stores. So when he found an old camera in an antique store years later, he just couldn’t resist.

Drawn In

On one fateful morning in 2017, Martijn was walking through town when he found his feet taking him toward the doors of a thrift store close by.

Not one to pass up an opportunity to find vintage photographs, but running short on time, he promised himself he’d just have a quick look inside.

After scanning the shelves but not seeing anything interesting, he was about to turn to leave when something caught his eye.