Shoppers are turning to a new kind of horror , Leviticus , a bleak, queer-tinged chiller by Australian director Adrian Chiarella that makes homophobia itself feel like a stalking presence; it’s moody, unsettling and worth your attention if you like horror that lingers.

Essential Takeaways

  • Bleak atmosphere: The film bathes a regional Australian town in sickly yellows and a steady electronic hum, creating a claustrophobic, depressive mood.
  • Queer protagonists: It centres on two gay teenagers, Naim and Ryan, whose secret relationship is hunted by a supernatural force tied to local religious conservatism.
  • Allegory and horror: Director Adrian Chiarella uses supernatural doppelgangers as a metaphor for conversion-style persecution, while keeping imagery ambiguous enough to avoid a simple 1:1 reading.
  • Violence and intimacy: The film mixes sexual tenderness with scenes of betrayal and physical brutality, so it’s emotionally intense and sometimes hard to watch.
  • Industry note: Neon is giving Leviticus a wide US release, which could expand space for queer voices in mainstream horror.

A dusk of the soul: the opening hook and tone

Leviticus announces itself as a film steeped in loneliness, with lighting that feels artificial and a score that buzzes like a persistent insect. The visual palette and sound design put you inside a small town that’s been stripped of distractions, where even a queue at the deli feels like a main event. According to early coverage, Chiarella deliberately set the story in a regional, industrial backwater surrounding a church, which helps the film feel both claustrophobic and eerily familiar.

The effect is immediate: you don’t just watch the characters’ isolation, you feel it. That choice makes the film’s horrors , both supernatural and social , hit harder, especially when the institutions meant to protect young people instead turn on them.

What happens: plot essentials without spoilers

At its core, Leviticus follows Naim and Ryan, two teenagers whose intimacy is criminalised by their surrounding community. After a girl is attacked under mysterious circumstances linked to her non-heteronormative feelings, the town’s religious leaders call in a figure who functions like a witch to “deal” with queer youth. The result is a supernatural attack that takes the shape of evil doubles of lovers, blending psychological terror with literalised violence.

The narrative keeps you close to the protagonists, emphasising secrecy and paranoia. There are echoes of other contemporary body-horror romances; that familiar dread of being pursued for who you love is turned into a concrete, murderous force.

Allegory, conversion and the director’s intent

It’s tempting to read the spell and the doppelgangers as a direct allegory for conversion therapy, and many viewers and critics have done exactly that. Chiarella, however, leaves room for multiple readings. Using horror lets him treat real-world homophobia without making the film a straight documentary replication of those experiences.

That ambiguity is a strength for some and a frustration for others: you get powerful emotional truth without tidy metaphors. The film still lands as a comment on how religious institutions and families can weaponise love, even when their professed motive is concern.

The romantic through the lens of menace

Where some queer films temper heartbreak with hope, Leviticus leans into gloom. Intimacy between Naim and Ryan is tender but always under threat, which means the movie rarely offers long reprieves or comic relief. When it does present lighter moments, they feel fragile and fleeting, underscoring the film’s thesis that queer joy is often precarious in hostile environments.

That said, the movie doesn’t shy away from complexity: arguments, betrayals and even physical violence between lovers complicate a simple victim-versus-oppressor reading. The monsters on screen sometimes mirror failures within the relationship, which forces a darker, more nuanced consideration of how harm accumulates.

Why it matters in the current horror landscape

Horror has long been a place where marginal voices can experiment and find audiences without huge budgets, and Leviticus arrives at a moment when queer-authored scares still struggle for mainstream shelf space. With Neon taking the film wide, there’s a real shot it could reach viewers beyond festival circuits and indie devotees.

If it connects with audiences, Leviticus might help nudge open doors for more queer horror makers. It’s part of a slow, uneven corrective to a genre whose origins include many queer creators but whose recent success stories have often erased that lineage.

It's a small change that can make every scare feel more meaningful.

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