The Reel Review
Families in an Australian fundamentalist religious community subject their gay teenage sons to a mysterious and bizarre gay conversion therapy that conjures up a violent demon that appears as an exact replica of each boy’s love interest. Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen star in this LGBTQ+ horror/thriller.
At its core, Leviticus is a heavily symbolic tale about the horrors of homophobia and gay conversion therapy. Writer/director Adrian Chiarella, in his impressive feature film debut, draws upon experiences with isolation, mistrust, paranoia and disorientation to capture the terror felt by gay teens, when their only safe space, solitude, becomes unsafe. Seeing the families subject their children to this torture is stomach churning and heartbreaking.
Bird (Talk to Me) and Clausen (Thrash, Crazy Fun Park) are both convincing as Naim and Ryan, with Mia Wasikowska (The Devil All the Time, Alice in Wonderland) infuriatingly good as Naim’s hypocritical mother who expects him to share her faith despite having no faith in him when he tells her about the demon. This well-constructed horror, with its compelling visuals and unsettling score, will hit particularly hard for anyone in the LGBTQ+ community who has had to endure gay conversion therapy.
REEL FACTS
• The film draws its central horror concept from real-world accounts of conversion therapy practices across multiple cultures globally, not just Western or Christian contexts.
• Stacy Clausen improvised the body movements the demon version of his character made when confronted with fire.
• Leviticus was filmed in and around Melbourne, Australia.
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