Format: Feature Film (adapted from the multi-award-winning short film).
Genre: Horror.
Logline: An impoverished single mother struggles to hold on to her sanity as she’s forced into extreme measures to satisfy her son’s inhuman appetite.
Pitch: Hungry Joe is inspired by the nightmarish true story of historical serial killer Tarrare – the infamous bogeyman of French folklore whose legend has grown in recent years due to an internet renaissance. Relocated to contemporary England and reimagined using modern-day themes and a grounded, character-driven tone, Hungry Joe is a gripping psychological horror that charts the downfall of an impoverished single mother whose only child is cursed with a mysterious, insatiable appetite but, remarkably, never gains weight.
The film will fuse body horror with the social realism of British kitchen-sink dramas, charting the decades-long story of Laura Jackson and her son “Hungry” Joe Gilligan, as Joe transforms from a quiet, apathetic child into a monstrous, cannibalistic murderer and his mother’s struggles to retain her motherly instincts against horrific odds. Hungry Joe is a unique, origin story giving birth to a contemporary horror icon.
