Leviticus 

In an Australian coastal town that's seen better days, two male classmates at the local high school find themselves falling in love. Despite the repressive nature of their cultish evangelical community, the boys wrestle playfully and make eyes at one another, stealing kisses and cigarettes when they break into an abandoned mill on the outskirts of town. Naim is the quiet, buttoned-down new kid on the block while blonde, curly-haired Ryan is a swaggering cocky boy from the other side of the tracks (to be fair, the whole town looks like it's on the other side of the tracks). 

When Naim catches Ryan and the pastor's son, Hunter, engaged in a heavy-duty make-out session, he freaks out and heads straight to the parsonage to rat the boys out to Hunter's parents. Such is the father's distress that he summons a "deliverance healer"--a sort of exorcist--to cast out the entity causing the boys to engage in such unseemly behavior. As the healer chants a prayer and tosses holy water, Ryan and Hunter collapse to the floor in convulsive fits. When the healer flicks an old-style cigarette lighter in their faces, the demonic being exits with a prolonged howl. At last, the young men have been cleansed of their sins: their deviance has come to an end. But who are the true deviants here and what have their actions wrought?  

That is the question underlying director Adrian Chiarella's 2026 debut feature film (yes, another debut), Leviticus, in which religion serves as the direct culprit for the ills that befall our characters. What appears to be a cruel ritual of spiritual "healing" instead unleashes a malevolent, shape-shifting doppelganger that manifests itself as the person most desired by transgressors. Hunter and Ryan--and Naim, through his own guilt over the spectacle he's helped render--are left traumatized and unmoored by their experience at the church. Yet, for all that, the ceremony has failed to extinguish their fundamental hungers. 

This turns out to be a very bad thing indeed, especially for Hunter, who is being tormented and bloodied by an assailant only he can see. Hunter confides to Naim that Ryan--with whom contact has been forbidden (and ignored)--has been behaving erratically and showing up outside his job late at night at an isolated gas station. Ryan, he says, is not himself, and, in this case, he is 100% correct. After witnessing a savage encounter that ends with Hunter being dragged away into the woods by an (apparently) invisible force, Naim hurries to the police station to report his improbable story which is greeted with raised eyebrows and skepticism. Following their interview, the female detective suspects his tall tale almost makes Naim seem like....a jealous lover? Naim's recently widowed mum shows up at the station where she is given a brief lowdown by the detective. 

Shortly afterwards, Naim confesses his true feelings for Ryan, prompting mum to haul his ass directly to the evangelical lair of the deliverance healer and pastor (who is, as yet, unaware of the fate that has befallen his son). After undergoing the same ritual as the other two boys, Naim begins experiencing strange incidents where Ryan seems to be in two places at the same time. It's as if there's a good Ryan and an evil Ryan. Furthermore, something similar is happening to Ryan, who seems inexplicably terrified of Naim. 

Naim is certain it's all connected to the deliverance healer and his dark ceremony. Ryan's dalliance with Hunter was almost certainly sexual, and from the looks of things, maybe a bit rough. But it was Naim who Ryan truly desired, not Hunter, whose own intense passion led to his undoing. Now that Naim and Ryan have both received the "cleansing", they must try and curb their mutual feelings in order to protect one another from their murderous replicas (visible only to themselves). There is no adult they can trust, not the police, not Naim's mum, not their friends, and certainly not the evangelical cult with its now-bereaved pastor, and mysterious, deranged healer. They can't even be alone together because it's hard for each to tell which of them is human and which is the doppelganger. Betrayed by everyone, Ryan and Naim decide to go their separate ways, but the course of true love never runs smooth, and things don't quite work out the way they plan. 

Actors Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen each give amazing performances as, respectively, Naim and Ryan. As young men in love, lust and near-constant danger, they manage to remain perfectly in character, without reserve, yet also without going completely over the top. Whether playing protagonists or their own antagonists, the actors completely inhabit their roles, expertly treading the delicate line between their good and evil selves. Bird has been acting since he was 14, Clausen since age 18, so both actors are obviously comfortable performing in front of the camera, which works in the movie's favor. Mia Wasikowska, as Naim's mum, receives considerably less screen time, but she's a crucial figure to the movie's plot and devious finale. Having previously acted in leading roles for the likes of Guillermo del Toro (Crimson Peak), Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland), Park Chan-wook (Stoker) and Cary Joji Fukunaga (Jane Eyre), Wasikowska is an accomplished actress who, after a few years in Hollywood, decided to take a step back from the limelight, returning to Australia to appear in smaller, independent projects like Leviticus. 

To the credit of its creator, Leviticus is a fearlessly unsubtle, pointed indictment of fervent evangelism and the consequences of forced conversion therapy. Adrian Chiarella, who is himself gay, had written and directed a series of well-received short films and TV episodes before making Leviticus, but this film is so smart and well-realized that you'd think he'd been helming features for years. By making Leviticus both a coming-of-age love story and horror show, Chiarella demonstrates his versatility and skill at blending film genres that aren't always compatible on screen. So many gay-themed films currently streaming on Prime and Tubi are so poorly imagined that they're almost unwatchable. Leviticus is a refreshing surprise because I wasn't really expecting much despite the good reviews I read online. The movie's essential queer romance is never overshadowed by the bloody, cynical demands of current horror cinema, even as the film embraces the genre. With a nod to the 2014 supernatural thriller It Follows, Leviticus takes the reins and does its own thing. It's a lovely, scary, heartbreakingly poignant film that offers the viewer a rare, if ambiguous, silver lining.