Neil Chandramohan Bhoopalam finally gets to tick off the horror genre from his wishlist with his upcoming film Xarax. The short film, written and directed by Salil Jason Fernandez, is set to have its world première at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles. It has also been officially selected at Monster Fest in Australia and Curtas Festival do Imaxinario in Spain.
The story follows a priest, played by Bhoopalam, who visits a dilapidated convent in Mumbai to perform an exorcism. Instead of unmasking the demon within the convent, he discovers his darkest desires. Fernandez says he wanted to reinvent the exorcism genre with Xarax. “I wanted to make a horror film that lingers and unsettles you long after the credits roll. Horror usually shows us demons on the outside, but I wanted to turn the lens inward. What if the real demon is inside the mind? Xarax is about what happens when a priest has to confront his own suppressed sexual longings,” explains the director.
Salil Jason Fernandez
While telling an ambitious story on a shoestring budget was a challenge, Fernandez shares that his college mate Bhoopalam helped capture the intensity in every scene. “Neil was my first and only choice. He has this incredible mix of vulnerability and authority, which was perfect for the role. He threw himself into the part and brought layers to the priest’s inner conflict,” he shares.
For Bhoopalam, Xarax was initially just about doing his college senior a favour. However, the actor says the decision was cinched when he heard the story and its unexpected twists. “I followed the instructions of my director with faith and curiosity as there is little dialogue [in it]. For me, it wasn’t heavy in terms of performance, apart from the long shifts we had to do to capture as much as we could. Playing the priest, I had to pray a lot and keep a simplistic approach to curiosity,” says Bhoopalam. After wrapping up the festival circuit by January 2026, Fernandez hopes to release the short on a platform.
Up Next
Neil Bhoopalam will next be seen in Nikkhil Advani’s series ‘The Revolutionaries’.
