Two high school boys fall in love with each other in a small, conservative town in Australia. When it’s discovered by their religious community that they are gay, they are forced to undergo an anti-gay conversion ritual that invokes a violent entity appearing as the person they desire most in Adrian Chiarella’s first feature film.
Leviticus (2026) ★★★★☆ (4 stars) out of 5 stars ★★★★★
Going into this film, I knew it would stir up some feelings within me. The first man I ever fell in love with outed me in high school, so watching this really reopened a lot of emotions I had buried.
It reminded me of how hurt I felt being betrayed by the first person I shared those feelings with, and how suddenly my secret became the talk of the town. This film does a great job of showcasing not just the heartbreak of that experience, but also the terror and isolation that follow being outed.
One could consider this a queer mash-up of the stalking terror and shame of sexual exploitation in It Follows and the emotional depth and shocking horror of Talk to Me. My only real complaint is that the film is a bit slower in pace compared to those films. But once the plot gets going, it becomes quite an emotional and terrifying experience.
The acting by Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen is outstanding. They do a great job balancing sympathetic characters you care about while also portraying horrifying, demonic versions of themselves—sometimes within the same scene.
This is one of those films that offers more to unpack with each rewatch. It handles the queer experience in a genuine way that I’ve never seen a horror film achieve before.