For his first feature film, Leviticus, Australian director Adrian Chiarella blends fantasy and queer drama to denounce the religious repression of homosexuality. In theaters from October 7.
Internationally applauded by horror aficionados, Australian horror cinema has in recent years enjoyed a notable upswing thanks in particular to the enticing offerings from the Philippou brothers (The Hand, Substitution) or Sean Byrne’s unabashed shark thriller Dangerous Animals. Joining this lineup is Leviticus, Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature in theaters this Wednesday, October 7, which highlights the violence of conversion therapies by wrapping it in a supernatural layer.
Following the death of his father, Naim, a high school student, moves unwillingly with his mother, a particularly devout woman, to a small evangelical community in southeastern Australia. His dull daily life is transformed by his meeting with Ryan, with whom he forms a relationship. Suspected of being gay, the two teens are forcibly subjected to a traumatic ritual that unleashes a violent entity that takes the appearance of the person they desire most: each other. From then on, they must join forces to fight this malevolent force before it is too late…
There is no denying the kinship with It Follows. In 2014, that film explored the ravages of a shapeshifting entity that relentlessly haunted a teenage girl after a sexual encounter. While the influence of the film is evident — notably in its rhythm and in its portrayal of a deliberately blurred present, hard to date — Leviticus manages to be more than a mere imitation of David Robert Mitchell’s masterpiece, leaning toward Gus Van Sant in its realistic and relentless portrayal of a tormented youth. The film’s revelations, Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen, who play the two leads, bring real authenticity to the roles.
Despite its marketing aimed at horror fans, Leviticus tilts more toward psychological drama, with horror perhaps its less mastered facet. It, however, perfectly fulfills its mission of digging into the damage caused by “conversion therapies.” “That’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? For us to fear one another?”, one of the two protagonists blurts out in the middle of the film. The entity is only the personification of the violence at work in these pseudo-therapies, and Naim’s trajectory, marked by constant anxiety and paranoia, mirrors their tragic consequences, far from the promised salvation. In this sometimes bloody denunciation, Leviticus hints at a possible outcome: love and acceptance, unshakeable.
