“Leviticus” Turns Pray-The-Gay-Away Horror Into A Tender Queer Love Story
Leviticus is a new Australian supernatural horror film that reframes conversion practices as the real nightmare, and it reaches cinemas this week. Writer and director Adrian Chiarella sets the story in a conservative regional town where two teenage boys, Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen), fall for each other inside a strict, God-fearing community.
When their connection is discovered, a coercive ritual triggers a shape-shifting entity that takes the form of the person each boy desires most. Each other.
Where the monster came from
Chiarella did not want to make another film about a gay demon. He told Star Observer he had read accounts of exorcisms performed on queer teenagers around the world, and a straight retelling of The Exorcist felt like it only fed the myth. So he asked a sharper question. “What if they put something in them that scared them out of their desires,” he said.
He landed on “this entity or horror movie monster that takes the form of the person that you most desire.”
Mia Wasikowska plays Naim’s born-again mother.
Why this one hits harder
The film grew out of something personal. Chiarella married his husband after years of watching the community win ground, then saw some of that progress slide back. “I noticed things sort of shifting in the last decade or so,” he said, pointing to the homophobic rhetoric stirred up during Australia’s marriage equality debate.
He sees the monster as homophobia in all its shades, internalised, externalised, and institutional.
When can you watch Leviticus?
Leviticus comes from Causeway Films, the team behind The Babadook and Talk to Me, and premiered in the Midnight section at Sundance, where US distributor Neon picked up international rights in a deal reported at around five million US dollars. Critics are on side, with a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It opens in Australian cinemas on 18 June 2026, with a United States release the following day. We reckon it is one to catch on the big screen.
