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Alejandro Hidalgo, director of “The Exorcism of God,” is set to make “The Hungry One,” a supernatural horror film unfolding over Malaysia’s Hungry Ghost Festival.
Kuala Lumpur-based Abnormal Studios is handling worldwide
sales and is introducing the project at the Busan International Film Festival’s Asian Contents & Film Market. Singapore-based Clover Films has already picked up rights for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The story follows Emily, an American woman who travels with Simon, her Chinese Malaysian husband, and their son Louis to spend the summer at his family’s mansion. Their stay coincides with the 15-day festival, when the underworld is believed to open and the dead mingle with the living. Emily becomes the target of escalating encounters with a vengeful presence trying to cross over, and must dig into the house’s hidden past before it takes her family.
Filmmaker and entrepreneur Justin Leong is driving the project through Los Angeles-based Lightning Pictures.
“Growing up in Asia, I always felt the Hungry Ghost Festival was incredibly rich visually, from the fire and offerings to the rituals and mythology behind it. When you capture that and shoot it cinematically, it’s movie gold. It gives us a world that audiences may not have seen before, but one that feels immediately atmospheric, mysterious and made for horror,” Leong said.
Leong, who has deep ties to Malaysian-Chinese culture, drew on his own family’s traditions to shape the story.
Hidalgo’s first feature, “The House at the End of Time,” remains Venezuela’s biggest horror hit at the box office. It earned strong notices on the festival circuit and has since gathered a cult audience for mixing the supernatural with science fiction. His 2021 follow-up, “The Exorcism of God,” bowed at Fantastic Fest and went on to sell to more than 150 countries, with Saban Films handling its U.S. theatrical release. It ended 2022 as the highest-grossing Latin American film worldwide.
Producer Harrison Allen, who won the live action short Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards for Netflix title “The Singers,” is also on board. His latest feature, “Anima,” screened at SXSW this year.
Also attached is Thomas Percy Kim, a Sundance and Toronto fellow whose debut feature “Isle Child,” based on his own short that HBO Max acquired, premiered in Toronto. Screenwriter Justin Parker worked on the development of HBO’s Emmy-nominated limited series “Station Eleven” and was a writer on docuseries “Religion of Sports.”
“The Hungry One” is in pre-production, with its producers working to lock the last portion of its financing.
Abnormal Studios, a subsidiary of Westec Media Limited, has been acquiring and releasing films since 2020 and has handled more than 400 titles to date. It now brings around 100 films a year to Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Mongolia and Nepal. Recent releases include “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” and “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.”
