Leviticus stands as one of the most searing queer horror films of its year, a work that threads supernatural terror through the fragile emotional fabric of adolescent longing.
As a work of contemporary Australian cinema, Leviticus stands as a bold, unsettling, and deeply human film, one that uses the language of horror to speak about desire, repression, and the cost of survival.
Written and directed by Adrian Chiarella, the film is an Australian coming‑of‑age romantic supernatural horror.
The film’s premise is stark and devastating: a religious community summons a violent supernatural entity that takes the form of the person one desires most — and for two closeted teenage boys, that means each other.
The significance of Leviticus lies in its fearless confrontation of religious repression, queer desire, and the psychological violence inflicted by communities that claim moral authority
Chiarella’s film is not merely a horror narrative; it is a critique of conversion therapy, a portrait of rural isolation, and a study of how shame becomes a haunting force. The entity at the centre of the story is not a monster in the traditional sense but a manifestation of forbidden longing, guilt, and internalised fear.
By allowing the supernatural threat to take the shape of the boys themselves, the film literalises the terror of being seen, desired, and condemned. This thematic boldness has earned the film strong critical attention, with reviewers praising its emotional intensity, atmospheric dread, and the raw vulnerability of its young performers.
On balancing horror and romance
“For me, it was something that I knew had to be calibrated really carefully,: says Chiarella. “Like, I knew I wanted to do that, exactly what you were talking about. And I knew there would be a lot of—it’s especially hard when you’re writing a script because of sort of all the pitfalls people don’t want you to fall into; they’re going to steer you away from. And so, I knew that I was going to have to really work hard to convince people that this was going to work. And it was just a lot of writing, rewriting, and exploring.”
“Once I came up with the mechanism of the horror element—once I had this horror movie monster—then I could sort of park that and focus on the love story in the writing. And then it was just a matter of, like, bouncing between the two as I went through and worked on the script. And in fact, that balance was something that we worked on all the way through to the end of the edit, the end of the sound mix, really. We were constantly taking scenes out, putting them back, and figuring out, like, “Oh, hang on, we’ve got a horror movie that hasn’t had any scares for 45 minutes, what are we doing?” So then we’d go back and look at the film’s structure ”
On why the story had to be horror
“I wanted to make a movie where we explored homophobia, and homophobia is a type of fear, and horror is the genre of fear. That’s what it always does; it doesn’t matter if it’s a supernatural film or a slasher movie or some sort of psychological study. It’s about digging into the deep fears of the characters and expressing them in this genre that is a little larger than life. I learned as I got older, and began to understand more about movies, that I was not alone as a queer teenager with this love of horror. I think it’s something we all shared. There’s something in this genre about the exploration of otherness and of feeling a little destabilised when you’re on that journey of self-discovery.”
On horror’s long history of punishing transgression
“Something you definitely notice when you grow up watching horror movies is that they are this genre where something bad happens because you’ve committed a transgression. You know, don’t feed this thing after midnight or don’t walk through this place at a certain time. And particularly in the ’80s, you’re right, often the transgression had to do with sex and sexuality.”
Chiarella’s inspiration for the film draws from the cultural and religious tensions embedded in rural Australian communities, where evangelical Christianity often shapes social norms and expectations.
The film’s title, Leviticus, references the biblical book frequently invoked in debates around sexuality, signalling the director’s intention to interrogate how scripture is weaponised against queer youth.
The narrative’s central ritual, a violent “deliverance” intended to purge homosexual desire, echoes real‑world conversion practices that have left lasting trauma on survivors. The film’s supernatural framework allows Chiarella to explore these themes with heightened emotional stakes, transforming psychological repression into literal haunting.
“The first spark for Leviticus came from my interest in exorcisms being performed on queer teenagers in different cultures around the world. I thought, well, that’s only perpetuating the myth that people who perform that stuff really believe in, which is that there’s some sort of gay demon inside of people. So I inverted it. Instead of a ritual pulling something out, what if it forced something in? What if the horror was not desire itself, but the fear placed around it? The entity “lures you and disarms you and tricks you, before ultimately scaring you away from your own feelings.”
At the heart of the film is the relationship between Naim Reid and Ryan Whelan, portrayed with aching sincerity by Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen.
Naim arrives in a devout evangelical town after his father’s death, seeking stability with his mother, played by Mia Wasikowska. Ryan, a local teenager, becomes both a source of comfort and a catalyst for danger. Their secret romance unfolds in stolen moments — a kiss in a roller rink, a whispered confession, a shared glance that carries the weight of forbidden truth. Yet their connection is fragile, threatened not only by the community’s intolerance but by Naim’s own fear and jealousy. When Naim witnesses Ryan kissing Hunter, the pastor’s son, he outs both boys in a moment of impulsive betrayal. This act sets the supernatural horror in motion: the community summons a deliverance healer, and the boys are subjected to a violent ritual that unleashes the entity.
Bird’s performance as Naim is marked by emotional volatility — grief, longing, guilt, and terror collide in a character who is both victim and catalyst. Clausen’s Ryan, meanwhile, embodies the quiet desperation of a boy trying to navigate desire in a world that denies his existence. Their chemistry is central to the film’s impact; the entity’s ability to take the form of the person each boy desires most means that every moment of intimacy becomes a potential threat. The horror is not only external but internal, a reflection of how desire becomes dangerous when framed as sin.
The film’s significance extends beyond its narrative
As a debut feature, Leviticus establishes Adrian Chiarella as a filmmaker willing to merge genre with social critique. His background in editing and short‑form storytelling informs the film’s tight pacing and visceral imagery.
The cinematography by Tyson Perkins captures the bleak beauty of rural Australia; empty fields, dim roller rinks, and shadowed forests become landscapes of emotional suffocation. Jed Kurzel’s score intensifies the film’s tension, though some critics note its insistence on signalling dread. Nevertheless, the film’s aesthetic coherence reinforces its thematic concerns: repression is not only a social force but an environmental one, shaping every space the boys inhabit.
The supernatural entity itself becomes a metaphor for the consequences of shame
It stalks Ryan and Naim with increasing violence, culminating in moments of shocking brutality, underscoring the lethal stakes of the community’s beliefs. Yet the film’s most haunting scenes are those in which the boys confront versions of each other that are not real. When Ryan kisses Naim outside Hunter’s wake, only for “Ryan” to attack him moments later, the film crystallises its central idea: desire, when framed as monstrous, becomes indistinguishable from danger.
Ultimately, Leviticus is a film about escape — not only from a supernatural force but from a worldview that equates love with sin.
Its significance within queer cinema lies in its refusal to sanitise the emotional and physical violence inflicted on LGBTQ+ youth.
Instead, it uses horror to illuminate truths that are often ignored: the terror of being outed, the trauma of conversion practices, and the longing for connection in a world that denies it. For audiences attuned to queer storytelling, the film resonates as both a cautionary tale and a testament to resilience. For horror fans, it offers a fresh take on supernatural embodiment, merging genre conventions with social commentary.
As a work of contemporary Australian cinema, Leviticus stands as a bold, unsettling, and deeply human film — one that uses the language of horror to speak about desire, repression, and the cost of survival. Its performances, especially those of Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, anchor the film in emotional truth, ensuring that its supernatural terror never overshadows the real‑world horrors it reflects.
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