Alejandro Hidalgo to direct Malaysia-set horror The Hungry One

Alejandro Hidalgo is heading to Malaysia for his next scare.

The Venezuelan director will helm The Hungry One, a supernatural horror film set during the 15-day Hungry Ghost Festival, with the project introduced to buyers at the Busan International Film Festival's Asian Contents & Film Market, Variety reported on 10 Oct 2026.

The story follows Emily, an American woman who travels with her Chinese Malaysian husband Simon and their young son Louis to his family's mansion for the festival. The visit turns dark. Old family tensions surface as something unwelcome stirs inside the house.

Sales are already moving. Kuala Lumpur-based Abnormal Studios is handling worldwide sales, which means selling cinema rights territory by territory around the world. Singapore-based Clover Films has taken the film for Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, according to the same report.

The film is in pre-production, the stage before cameras roll. Filmmaker Justin Leong is driving the project through his Los Angeles-based Lightning Pictures, with producers now working to lock the last portion of the financing.

Producer Harrison Allen is also attached. He won the Academy Award for live action short for the Netflix title The Singers.

What makes this stand out is Hidalgo's track record in horror. His first feature, The House at the End of Time, remains Venezuela's biggest horror hit at the box office. His 2021 follow-up, The Exorcism of God, premiered at Fantastic Fest and later sold to more than 150 countries, with Saban Films handling its cinema release in the United States, Variety reported.

That film ended 2022 as the highest-grossing Latin American film worldwide.

Abnormal Studios, the sales company behind the launch, is a subsidiary of Westec Media Limited. It has handled more than 400 titles since it began acquiring and releasing films in 2020.

No cast or start-of-filming date has been announced. For now, Busan is where the business begins.