In Gothic horror, the monster is an outsider who endangers the characters’ way of life by embodying their darkest impulses. But what if the threat didn’t come from without, but from within? That’s the key question in writer-director Adrian Chiarella’s queer horror film Leviticus. For the film’s teenage protagonists, their secret desires are also their greatest fears. But it’s not their sexuality that’s monstrous. It’s the way that those around them react to it.
Levicitus takes place in in a small Australian industrial town, a rugged, repressed place that’s made up of low, wide concrete buildings, abandoned factories, and drab patches of dirt. There, timid Naim (Joe Bird) lives with his mother Arlene (Mia Wasikowska), a born-again Christian who drags her son every weekend to hear sermons about hellfire and divine judgement. Naim and Arlene are new in town, and Arlene is eager to fit in with her church community. What she doesn’t know is that Naim has already made a special friend: He’s been hooking up with his laddish classmate Ryan (Stacy Clausen), and the two have formed a hesitant, but affectionate bond.
