ALTER

Leave Me Alone | Horror Short Film | ALTER

Subscribe to ALTER on YouTube: https://goo.gl/LnXRC3 🔥 This horror is scripted. Your goosebumps are not. A British-Pakistani must confront her ancestral trauma head-on when she is haunted by a malevolent spirit seeking retribution for colonial atrocities in British India. "Leave Me Alone" by Shehroze Khan #ALTER #horror #shortfilm Connect with the Filmmakers: https://www.instagram.com/leavemealone_film/ https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/24931984.bradford-actor-mehmood-sultan-40-films/ https://www.shehrozekhan.com/ Director's Statement: This story was born out of rage and heartbreak. I came across a harrowing account from the British Raj; one I’d never been taught. For a brief moment during colonial rule, white Britons in India began to assimilate, some even marrying Indian women and raising mixed-race children. But when the empire felt its control slipping, it outlawed interracial unions. Fathers were ordered to dissolve their marriages, and in many cases, tear their light-skinned children away from their mothers, taking them back to Britain. The sheer cruelty of that erasure stunned me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the women left behind, and the children raised without ever knowing where they came from. That’s where this film began. At the time, I was also beginning to uncover my own family’s history, learning, for the first time in my late twenties, the full extent of what colonisation had done. With that came an emotional reckoning. For years, I hadn’t understood my father’s emotional distance, his anxiety, the way he processed pain by never speaking of it. But learning about our shared history was like finding a map to a part of myself I didn’t know was lost. I felt immense anger. But also, strangely; catharsis. It gave my pain context. It gave me language. It blew my mind that the extent of colonialism is so conveniently left out of the national curriculum. Izzy’s journey is deeply inspired by my own. A woman who processes trauma through avoidance and suppression, by keeping herself detached from her roots, until she is literally consumed by them. The haunted house becomes a space where history crashes into the present, and where inherited trauma demands to be reckoned with. Horror felt like the only genre big enough to hold the weight of this story. There is something deeply metaphysical about generational pain, something that lingers, like a presence in the walls. Horror gave me a way to dramatise that truth, to make the invisible visible, and to turn collective grief into something audiences could feel in their bodies. At the centre of the haunting is a Churail, a creature from South Asian folklore I grew up hearing stories about. Often depicted as a wronged woman who returns from death to seek vengeance, the Churail is both terrifying and deeply tragic. To merge that myth with the gothic haunted house genre I’ve loved since childhood was incredibly special. It allowed me to build a spirit that isn’t just a villain, but a manifestation of silenced trauma. This short is just the beginning. I’m currently developing it into a feature, one that explores the full emotional, historical, and supernatural scale of what it means to inherit pain you never chose, from a past no one talks about. I hope it sparks reflection and dialogue, but more than anything, I hope it offers some of the catharsis I felt in writing it. "Leave Me Alone" Credits: Writer/ Director: Shehroze Khan Script Supervisor: Lily Grafham Production: Richard Lingard Carmen Boettcher Tamera Gathuru Vincent Okih Dickie Chappell AD: Sabrina Ildefonso Penny Zouganelli Jonas Ackermann Cinematography: Cal-Ola Hagen James Kennedy Tvisha Shah Daley John Ryan Adams Shaun Waldie Production Design: Edoardo Parada Claire Matthews Sound: Emily Compton Cordane Richardson Robert Kivits Tyler Tappin Costume: Kei Osaruno Cast: Kiran Sonia Sawar Mehmood Sultan Anisa Butt Jonathan Hansler About ALTER: ALTER is an ever-expanding platform for the most daring storytellers in the world of horror. We are a home, community and launching pad for our filmmakers. Slip into the dark, disturbing corners of cutting-edge horror. Beyond our longstanding presence on YouTube, ALTER also operates a free streaming tv channel available on DIRECTV, Sling, CW, LG, Plex, Samsung TV+, Tubi, & TLC+. Learn how to watch ALTER on TV: https://linktr.ee/watchalter Submit your short films here: https://filmfreeway.com/alterdustsubmissions NOTE: Only completed horror shorts will be considered. Unsolicited scripts or pitches will be immediately deleted without review. Watch more: https://goo.gl/yvB7EM Follow us on Facebook: https://goo.gl/X4LhGr Follow us on Instagram: https://goo.gl/G6W7zn Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@watch_alter About Gunpowder + Sky: Creating content that resonates and impacts pop culture conversation, by empowering creators to take risks and experiment relentlessly in the pursuit of novel stories and formats.