A pair of gay teenagers try to survive being targeted by an entity taking the form of the person they are most attracted to: one another. Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus is a tight, impeccably performed slice of horror.
Leviticus is the first feature film from Australian writer-director Adrian Chiarella, and it’s one hell of a start. Tense, well-shot, with incredible performances, it’s a tight bit of terror with strong messaging in a supernatural take on all-too-real horror. Along with the Phillipou brothers and their Talk to Me and Bring Her Back successes, and the Cairnes Brothers ’Late Night with the Devil, Australia (and let’s not forget their Kiwi neighbours gifting recent SIFF Jury prizing-winning Marama & The Rule of Jenny Pen) is providing a new series of voices for the genre from the bottom of the world.
Naim is a lonely teenage boy in a slightly isolated Australian town, new to the area and a part of a culty church with his mom, played by a very welcome to see Mia Wasikowska. He meets a fellow semi-closeted gay teen, Ryan, and they connect. But the church doesn’t like this, of course, they don’t, and the boys and some other teens are set up to get rid of their “vice.” Leviticus is a film about conversion therapy and the attempted erasure of homosexuality by those who don’t accept it. The evil practice of conversion therapy usually involves forcing a teen to continue abuse to shame them away from admitting who they are. Unlike the camp setting of the wonderful and comedic But I’m a Cheerleader or the atrocious horror slasher of They/Them, the members of this church call upon a reverse exorcist, setting a supernatural creature upon them. It’s always there, always watching, ready to strike. It looms, waiting, and staring, trying to engage. It.. follows.
Yes, it’s easy to see the connection to the 2015 David Robert Mitchell film. But like the Parker Finn Smile films, one can see the writer-director having seen that, and it struck a match of an idea, but using it differently. But here’s the thing with the danger: unlike the demon of It Follows, which will get its target no matter, if Naim or Ryan don’t give it attention, it won’t hurt them. Only by giving in to it does it hurt and kill. It’s the call of desire made flesh. Perhaps even the temptation of lust, as they are teenagers filled with emotion and hormones, makes what’s already a terrible thing worse. At that age, EVERYTHING is bigger and more important. Relative newcomers Joe Bird, featured in Talk to me, as Naim and Stacy Clausen, recently seen in Thrash, as Ryan shine in playing all this emotion and uncertainty of how to make it through alive. The pair has incredible chemistry in their well-written depth.
The action by the church and the families doesn’t remove homosexuality; it just makes it dangerous. The implications are terrible and terrifying. The families know it doesn’t really change anything; it doesn’t “Fix” their sons and daughters (not that there is anything to fix), but it’s purposely putting the people they claim to love in harm’s way because it’s not “God’s way”. Thus, Leviticus takes a terrible concept and makes it even more abhorrent. It’s heartbreaking watching these boys go through this terror, making their wants dangerous to follow up on. I want to go further, but that goes into spoiler territory, but it’s an infuriating and horrorfic take.
Chiarella crafts the film with a tight intensity. Besides the horror of the situation, the camera choices create an uncomfortable closeness, allowing the faces’ expressions to do much of the work. It’s a world of uncomfortable claustrophobia, shot without color: drab, brown and nondescript; it’s a bleak, loveless world of repression. In addition, the film has an astounding soundscape, in silences and otherworldly creaking noise that encapsulate the boy’s situation. 
It’s a closeness, keeping on Naim and those around him that bear down. I do wish we had a little more of the world; at 85 minutes, there is room to expand, to get to know the characters a little more, and dig more into this community, of which I had questions of size, the church itself (is the whole town as an enclave or just his life), and others. But in keeping close also avoids going too wide and losing the insular nature. It’s a double-edged sword.
Adrian Chiarella is another in a series of fantastic new voices in horror cinema in the last few years. What a great boon! Leviticus has a tight power of terror in using a true-life horror and adding a supernatural element to craft a powerful and horrific narrative. A set of fantastic performances brings home the close-knit creepiness. Check it out.