Leviticus
Having just moved to an industrial Australian town because of mother Arlene's (Mia Wasikowska, "Club Zero") yearning for religious community, Naim (Joe Bird, "Talk to Me") is teased by classmate Ryan (Stacy Clausen, "Thrash") of being afraid of everything. It is the obvious attraction between the two of them that has Naim most on edge even as it brings him euphoria, but Arlene's church has a terrifying remedy for those who would seek out their own sex romantically, condemned in the pages of "Leviticus."
Laura's Review: A-
Writer/director Adrian Chiarella's feature debut may just be the best of 2026's new voices in horror, his combination of love challenged by small town bigotry with supernatural horror like "Boy Erased" by way of "It Follows." While there have been several anti-conversion therapy films in the LGBTQ genre, none have so effectively combined the horror of denying one's own freedom and identity with such a tender depiction of budding romance. That the horror appears in the very form of one's ultimate desire is shattering.
After a brief prologue in which we see life guard Marnie (Tyallah Bullock) brutally attacked by an unseen assailant while engaged in sexual pleasure in a public pool shower, Chiarella throws us right into his present day narrative, Naim recoiling from the site of a snake ingesting a frog while the blond Adonis that is Ryan laughs. The two leave the field under its vast Australian sky to enter an abandoned mill, where playful roughhousing turns into a passionate embrace and hungry kissing, Naim's bedroom eyes expressing wonder and contentment. But just as Naim begins to accept this relationship for what it is, the rug is pulled out from under him when he spies Ryan kissing the pastor's son, Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt). Distraught, he disappoints us by reporting the dalliance to Hunter's father (Ewen Leslie, "The Nightingale") and mother (Edwina Wren). He is completely unprepared for what follows.
We've witnessed Naim and Ryan sitting several rows apart at Church services neither appears to engage with, but now Naim stands with his mother, Ryan and Hunter the subjects of a Deliverance Preacher (Nicholas Hope, "Bad Boy Bubby") who turns out to be something like an exorcist in reverse, casting something into them which will cause them to be terrorized, and worse, by something that takes on the appearance of the person they desire. Both boys fall to the floor, Naim horrified to watch Ryan writhing on the ground, foaming at the mouth. He begins to follow him, scooping up a series of odd photos of Ryan alone in a photo booth. Ryan, who emerges bloodied saying the culprit was Naim himself warns him to stay away before he is targeted by the holy rollers. Naim will learn why one night at a gas station when he witnesses Hunter appear to embrace someone who isn't there, but no banging on the glass from inside alerts the young man who is suddenly flung to the ground and dragged off into the darkness, his corpse found the next day.
Chiarella adds to Naim's isolation not only by making him question whether Ryan is real or not, but with two betrayals, first from his own mother, then someone both he and Ryan thought an ally. Cinematographer Tyson Perkins ("Went Up the Hill") uses sudden light in darkness to emphasize Ryan's threat to Naim, then shoots the two separated by the screen of a door like the confessional barrier between priest and supplicant. Chiarella's location, a town of transmission towers and belching smokestacks, overwhelms the natural surroundings. Composer Jed Kurzel's ("The Babadook," "Nitram") throbbing industrial hum combined with a downward spiral of strings adds to the sense of doom.
With "Leviticus," a new feature filmmaker has given two young actors breakout roles while putting himself on the map with a bleak, challenging film where love conquers all.
Neon releases "Leviticus" in theaters on 6/19/26.
