South Korea’s Barunson E&A is to handle international sales of Satan’s Slaves: Origin, the latest in the blockbuster Indonesian horror franchise directed by Joko Anwar.
The leading studio, best known for producing Oscar-winner Parasite, will launch the project at TIFF: The Market in Toronto next week.
It follows Anwar’s Satan’s Slaves, which became Indonesia’s highest-grossing local film of 2017 and is widely credited with reigniting the country’s ongoing horror boom; and 2022 sequel Satan’s Slaves: Communion, which became the first Indonesian feature released in Imax and is the country’s sixth highest-grossing local film of all time.
The third instalment (original title: Pengabdi Setan 3: Origin) is built as a standalone prequel, tracing the origins of the cult and demonic pact that set the first two films in motion. The story begins with a mysterious mass hysteria that gripped 16th-century Strasbourg — inspired by a real-life incident in 1518 — before arriving at a haunted lighthouse on the southern coast of 17th-century Java.
Written and directed by Anwar, it is produced by Rapi Films, in co-production with Come and See Pictures, Sky Media and Legacy Pictures. The film is in pre-production and will unfold across two continents and seven languages including Indonesian, Alsatian, Portuguese, Javanese, Dutch, Turkish and Latin. A theatrical release in 2027 is being planned.
Barunson E&A claims it is “one of the most ambitious genre productions to come out of Southeast Asia”.
Anwar’s previous film, Ghost In The Cell, premiered at the Berlinale in February and was released locally in April, where the horror-comedy has drawn more than 3.3 million admissions and ranks as the year’s second biggest local title at the Indonesia box office to date.
Barunson E&A, which signed a two-year exclusive partnership with Anwar’s Come and See Pictures last year, has sold the film to 150 territories worldwide including North America.
Anwar said of his upcoming horror: “This film is everything I didn’t know I was building toward – the one that finally answers where the curse came from, why it never stopped, and what it’s really after.”
It adds to a growing slate of Asian genre titles for Barunson E&A that also includes Thai horror Inherit from Banjong Pisanthanakun, which is set to world premiere at Toronto; Indonesian zombie-apocalypse feature Zona Merah: Dead City; and Korean occult mystery Stoneborn, from the team behind horror blockbuster Exhuma.
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