Monsters in Human Skin: a 'Leviticus' Review

When press registration opened for the 43rd Annual Miami Film Festival, Leviticus was the first film in my shopping cart.

I wasn’t the only one. This was a common denominator in the pre-show chatter. The queer horror film, which received rave reviews at Sundance before being snapped up by NEON, was already one of the most anticipated films of the year for much of the audience. 

Leviticus is an Australian horror movie directed by Adrian Chiarella. Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen star as Naim and Ryan, two teens who are haunted by a physical manifestation of homophobia in this conversion therapy allegory. 

Let’s set the scene.

After two teenagers in rural Australia are exposed for homosexual activity, the tight-knit religious community bring in a Deliverance Healer to “rid the boys of their indecency.” This is no “pray the gay away” hand-wavey bullshit– when the chanting Healer flicks his lighter closed, the scene devolves from tense into an all-out exorcism. The image of them, eyes rolled back in convulsions, choking on their own vomit, settles into the film like a stone dropped in water. Everything else ripples out from there.

Before the stone is dropped, the film’s early scenes follow Naim and Ryan as they are slowly drawn into each other’s orbits. Young love in a small town involves a lot of staring across church pews, exploring the countryside, smoking and wrestling in abandoned buildings. It is the latter which eventually culminates in a kiss, that leads to many more. 

Things are going as well as they can, until a secret comes to light that ends with the flick of a lighter. After a bizarre encounter with post-Deliverance Ryan, Naim begins to track as Ryan and Hunter are the victims of a series of violent attacks. Strangely, it seems to be wrought by someone (or something) only they can see. 

Stranger still, for Ryan, that someone seems to look like Naim.

After the attacks lead to Hunter’s disappearance, Naim raises the alarm to his mother, his only remaining connection in their new town. Unfortunately, with a flick of a lighter, Naim joins the others in their fate, where they discover they are not the first. Jessica, the girlfriend of the film’s first victim, reveals what has really happened.

Whether spiritual or societal, conversion cannot change who you truly are. It remains the case for those who see the Deliverance Healer. This is no cure– it is purely a punishment, inescapable. To rid you of “all your lust, all your desire, all your indecency,” the victims have been cursed to suffer the physical reminder of those sins. They are to be stalked by an entity that only appears when they are alone, and takes the form of whom they desire most. 

For Ryan and Naim, that is each other.

Not to be too obvious, but Leviticus is fucking scary. Chiarella imbues the film with dread and paranoia, and executes some fantastic jump scares. The special effects team crafted props that persist in haunting my nightmares (don’t get me STARTED on Ryan’s ear). But the real star of the film is its leading actors. 

Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen have an electric chemistry as Naim and Ryan. “They’re able to communicate so much with just their eyes,” said Chiarella in an interview. This ability to carry the film wordlessly through the most tense and silent moments propels the film (and its leads) to stardom. There is a magnetism between them, a constant draw towards the other, that keeps pulling Ryan and Naim together despite Jessica’s warnings to stay away from each other.

“The closer you get, the better it gets at being you.”

It’s what makes the scenes between them so much more weighted post-Deliverance– imagine having such undeniable chemistry with a person, and not knowing if it’s something else wearing their skin?

Leviticus, when it is not scaring the shit out of you, hurts. Good intentions are corrupted, piety becomes a weapon, and the people closest to you hurt you the most. In Leviticus, no one can ever be trusted– every loved one can be a monster in disguise.

It isn’t always a supernatural antagonist, either. Naim’s mother expresses he “can always talk to her,” but when Naim opens up to his mother about his fears for Ryan and Hunter, she continuously disregards his concerns. Then, just a few hours later, they pull into their driveway to see men waiting outside, and Naim’s face drops as the Deliverance Healer steps through the screen door. Naim begs his mother not to do this, to listen to him, but as the men remove him from the car, she does nothing. In the aftermath, she doesn’t apologize, and when the entity begins ripping her son apart, as Naim begs her to not leave him alone, she doesn’t listen. 

She looks at the wounds and the terror of her only son, and says it is for his own good. When she walks offscreen that last night, the audience knows Naim will not be seeing her again.

Despite how much I enjoyed this film, there are valid criticisms to be made. 

Leviticus pulls its title from Leviticus 18:22, a Biblical reference often used to justify homophobic bigotry. With such a culturally relevant titular reference, Leviticus could have dug deeper into the religious undertones and made a more explicit connection. The antagonists in this film are not only the entity, but also people close to the protagonists– family, friends, parishioners– who are just as capable of harm. In a film built on not knowing who to trust, folding in the already limited population of a tight-knit small town aspect would have added another dimension to the feeling of disconnection and paranoia.

Another missed opportunity for depth was the underutilization of horror darling Mia Wasikowska, who made a rare return to the big screen in Leviticus. Wasikowska gave a strong performance as Arlene, Naim’s world-worn devout mother, but her motivations were unclear and unconvincing. Her constant disregard of her son’s concerns and fears, and her invitation of the Deliverance Healer to her son, could have been bolstered in a script edit. 

Most of these issues could have been resolved if the film had been longer. Chiarella cut his teeth in short films, and it shows in his first full-length feature– Leviticus only comes in at around an hour and a half runtime. Many MFF audience members agreed that the film would have benefited from additional screentime to flesh out its concepts further. 

This film was billed as a cross between It Follows and Heated Rivalry. While the tether of physicality to a monstrous stalker is a clear parallel to It Follows, I would argue Leviticus sees a closer similarity to Brokeback Mountain than Heated Rivalry. All three share the secrecy and danger around a queer relationship, but the additional rural setting, the breathless pace, and crushing weight of bigotry bring this closer to Brokeback. The question of what (or who) you will sacrifice, and what you are willing to endure to be yourself, is a key theme of both films.

In Leviticus, Chiarella twists the joy and excitement of young desire and burgeoning queer relationships into something to be feared and turned away from. This Letterboxd review summarized it best– “Being true to yourself is what is going to hurt you.” This, more than any jump scare, gives the film its greatest gut punch.

It is fitting that when Naim figures out how to weaken the entity, it is by embracing what sealed his fate in the first place. The Bic lighter he finds in the bathroom not only harkens to the one weaponized by the Deliverance Healer, but also to the flare stack burning in the background of many of the landscape shots. Naim has to reclaim the part of himself that has been snuffed out– he reignites the flame, traps the entity in its own flame, and runs to the bus stop, where he finds Ryan, scarred but alive. 

I truly loved this film. Leviticus was one of my two five star rankings for the 43rd Annual Miami Film Festival, and I have been waiting impatiently since the credits finished to see it again. Despite that, I struggled heavily to write this article, and the conclusion was no different. 

In 2026, the newscycle is increasingly dominated by homophobic and transphobic sentiment, and it can be hard to see the bright side as we seem to hurtle backwards in time. This makes it even more important that at the end of the film, despite the entity still haunting them, Naim and Ryan choose to leave together. Leviticus has no picket-fence ending– many conversations need to be had, and the entity lurks in a parting shot through the bus window. But they have a lighter and the promise of a future, one they will figure out together. They choose to move forward.

To quote my own initial review, typed out with tear-stained cheeks and a heavy heart– “it’s so scary but it’s worth it. it hurts so much but it’s worth it. it has to be worth it. we make it worth it.” 

This Pride month, it is important to remember that conversion therapy has changed the gender or sexuality of 0% of its victims. Societal pressure and bigotry do. Love will always win. We will do it together.

Leviticus opens in the US on June 19th, 2026.