Police in a remote stretch of Himachal Pradesh find a gutted structure and a body left sitting upright. The family refuses the official verdict and hires a paranormal investigator. That case comes out of Jay Alani‘s own files, and he has now built it into Numinous, a Hindi and English horror feature he directs and stars in.
Principal photography has wrapped, and Fearfolks, the Bangkok company that has handled world sales since boarding the film for Cannes earlier this year, is taking the first look to the American Film Market. Variety first reported the wrap. The release is set for late 2027. Gaurav K. Sharma, of Gangs of Wasseypur and Madras Cafe, and Mihir Rajda co-star.
Alani Directs and Stars
Alani investigates hauntings for a living, hosts a podcast and has written books out of his cases, among them Haunted, The Paranormal Boy and The Haunted Doorway. The film takes one of those documented files and dramatizes it, with Alani on both sides of the camera.
“I’m most looking forward to making the audience feel like they’ve stepped into an investigation they shouldn’t be part of,” Alani said. Hans Audric Estialbo, Fearfolks’s chief executive, said Alani’s approach to horror “feels fearless,” and that the film “will resonate with the new generation of cinemagoers” in India and beyond.
Horror Has Been Mining Case Files for Decades
The route is well travelled. The Conjuring films have worked Ed and Lorraine Warren’s case papers since 2013, one strand of a long tradition of horror drawn from real events, and the Warrens’ own collection, Annabelle included, now sits in a museum in Salem. The difference here is that the investigator is not a character someone else is playing. He is the one directing the reconstruction of his own case.