Horror movies usually teach us to run away from the monster. You see a masked killer or a shadowy demon, and your survival instinct kicks in. But Adrian Chiarella’s 2026 supernatural thriller Leviticus flips that basic survival instinct completely on its head. Imagine the creature coming to destroy you looks exactly like the person you want most in the world. It doesn't just stalk you. It weaponizes your deepest, most private desires against you.
The film follows Naim, played with a brilliant raw vulnerability by Joe Bird, and Ryan, played by Stacy Clausen. They're two teenage boys navigating a secret, intense attraction in a heavily repressed, deeply religious rural Australian town. When their hidden romance gets exposed, their community chooses an intervention that is far more sinister than physical isolation. They subject the boys to an intense exorcism ritual under a "Deliverance Healer," played with chilling calmness by Nicholas Hope. Instead of curing them, this ritual summons a shape-shifting entity that takes the physical form of the person they crave most. It forces them into a terrifying reality where intimacy equals imminent danger.
The Brutal Brilliance of a Shape Shifting Threat
Most horror films use monsters as a metaphor for external trauma or grief. Leviticus makes the monster an extension of internalized shame and forced conversion therapy. Because the entity only targets them when they're entirely alone, Naim and Ryan are forced to stay glued to each other to survive. Think about how brilliant that setup is. The only way to stay safe from the creature is to remain close to the very person whose face the creature steals.
It mimics the psychological torture of growing up closeted in an intolerant environment. You want to reach out to the person you love, but doing so feels like pulling a trigger. Chiarella avoids cheap jump scares here. He focuses instead on a slow, suffocating sense of paranoia. You watch the characters look at each other, and you instantly feel the sudden shift from pure romance to cold terror. Is that really Ryan standing by the edge of the woods, or is it the thing that wants to drag Naim into the dark? The tension is completely unyielding.
How Internalized Guilt Drives the Plot
The movie doesn't paint its protagonists as perfect, flawless victims. It treats them like actual teenagers. They make messy, desperate, and incredibly destructive choices. Early in the film, a sudden wave of jealousy causes Naim to betray Ryan, exposing their relationship to the church pastor, played by Ewen Leslie. This single act of teenage spite triggers the entire supernatural nightmare.
The weight of that specific guilt anchors the entire narrative. Naim has to watch the boy he loves suffer through a supernatural curse that he personally set in motion. When Ryan eventually discovers the truth behind the entity's arrival, the fragile sanctuary they built together completely shatters. The monster didn't just break into their lives from the outside. The community used Naim’s own human errors to build the trap.
Weaponized Faith Lives Right at Home
What makes Leviticus genuinely hard to watch isn't the supernatural element. It's the mundane, everyday cruelty of the townsfolk. Mia Wasikowska turns in a phenomenal, unsettling performance as Arlene, Naim’s mother. She isn't a cartoonish, mustache-twirling villain. She genuinely believes she's saving her son's soul by handing him over to a dangerous deliverance ritual. That's the real horror.
The church members don't scream in hatred. They quietly watch teenagers endure immense emotional and physical trauma, shedding tears while refusing to stop the healer. The movie demonstrates how easily systemic bigotry disguises itself as parental love and community care. The rural Australian setting, with its washed-out filters and vast, empty fields, emphasizes just how isolated these boys really are. They are completely stranded in plain sight.
How to Process the Film Beyond the Screen
If you plan to watch this movie, don't expect a standard popcorn slasher. It leaves a heavy mark. Here is how to actually engage with the themes of the movie and understand its cultural impact.
- Look past the supernatural skin: Read up on the real history of conversion therapy practices. The movie exaggerates the physical monster, but the psychological fragmentation it portrays is pulled directly from real-world accounts.
- Study the filmic influences: Watch David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows right after. Notice how Chiarella borrows the concept of an inescapable, slow-moving pursuer but shifts the stakes by embedding it entirely within a queer narrative.
- Analyze the sound design: Pay close attention to the silence. The film relies heavily on low hums, quiet breathing, and sudden drops in ambient noise to build anxiety rather than loud orchestral stabs.
The movie ends without offering easy comfort or a neat, happy Hollywood resolution. It lands a final, aching punch that forces you to realize the monster isn't something that can just be killed with a silver bullet. The real danger is the enduring machinery of intolerance that created it in the first place. Go buy a ticket, sit in the dark, and let it rattle you.
