Melissa and Amy Smart and her newlywed husband Yul are embarking on a honeymoon trip to China, seeking to explore new cultural experiences and enjoy their first days of married life. Their journey takes a darker turn when they participate in the traditional "Hungry Ghost" Festival, an ancient event rooted in legend where it is believed that the spirits of the dead come back to walk among the living during this special time.
Their guide, Ping Dennis Chan Kwok-San, is a friendly and helpful local who drives them to a remote village, where Yul's relatives are said to reside. As night falls, the couple begins to sense that something ominous is unfolding. While Yul sleeps peacefully in the car, Ping stops and explains that he needs to leave to ask for directions. However, Ping never returns, prompting Melissa and Yul to venture into the village on foot in search of him.
The village appears deserted and eerie, with boarded-up windows and strange silent streets where live animals are left as offerings, creating an unsettling atmosphere. From behind closed doors, they hear chilling, unintelligible chanting, heightening their suspicion that they’ve entered a place shrouded in ancient, ghostly traditions. Feeling uneasy, they decide to leave and attempt to return to the city, but their plans are disrupted when they encounter a wounded stranger on the road. Compassionately helping him, they soon come under attack, chased by pale, haunting creatures.
Seeking refuge, Melissa and Yul hide in a barn, where the stranger, in a desperate attempt to save himself, tries to knock Yul out in order to replace him as prey for the creatures. Melissa manages to subdue the man and drags the weak Yul back to their car. Moments later, the creatures break through and attack, smashing the vehicle to get through. Using quick thinking, the couple escapes through the trunk of the car and takes refuge inside a crypt, hearing the villagers’ chants again, led by a male voice they recognize from a radio broadcast earlier.
Drawn by intangible forces, they are compelled to follow the villagers into a candlelit house, where they witness a disturbing ritual. In a trance-like state, the villagers strip Melissa and Yul and force them to participate in a sexually charged act on the floor in front of the crowd. Suddenly, Melissa and Yul blackout, awakening to find themselves in a field, shackled back-to-back to a tree. The creatures now surround them, and Yul, realizing that he and Melissa are the chosen sacrifices to appease the moon demons, pleads with the entities to take him instead of his wife.
Yul’s sacrifice is accepted, and Melissa awakens inside the house, where Ping reappears and explains that the villagers have been compelled to lure outsiders to serve as sacrifices to prevent the moon demons from claiming more villagers. He praises Yul’s bravery for sacrificing himself. Enraged and heartbroken, Melissa begins to beat Ping for what she perceives as betrayal, but Ping reveals an unsettling truth: Yul is still alive. She learns that the moon demons require a live human to fully transform into one of their kind.
Ignoring Ping’s warnings, Melissa follows a trail of candles to a dark cave where she finds Yul—half transformed, too weak to move—standing among the still and silent demons. Yul, bleeding and near death, tells Melissa that the creatures have already begun to invade his mind, and urges her to leave him behind or risk being killed herself. They share a final, heartbreaking declaration of love before Melissa places Yul’s wedding ring—the one taken from him by the villagers—back on his finger, then flees sobbing.
As she makes her escape, Melissa is relentlessly pursued by the creatures. Just when they are about to catch her, the moon begins to set. The creatures are gradually turned to gleaming silver dust by the rising sun, disintegrating into the morning air. Melissa witnesses Yul, now fully transformed into one of the demons, turn into dust as well. The movie leaves viewers with a haunting sense of loss and the dark reminder of the ancient, mysterious forces that linger in the shadows of the world—forces that are almost impossible to escape.
