Leviticus (2026 | Australia | 88 minutes | Adrian Chiarella)

The metaphors run hot and heavy in this Down Under horror story about the trauma of gay awakenings. Still, small abandoned conservative towns, spooky religion, and the overwhelming potency of teenage lust remain creepily effective tools when deployed this stylishly. In his debut feature, director Adrian Chiarella makes a splash with one of the most assured debuts of the festival.

The stage is set with an effective setpiece in which a young woman is seemingly seduced and slaughtered by a sexy swimming pool shower ghost before she ever hits the water for her morning laps. Without explaining anything, leveraging the cavernous solitary setting, and deploying the gore strategically, we’re dropped into the action knowing that something awful is amiss without actually understanding anything but the lurking danger.

The action cuts to a pair of teenage boys — brave blonde Ryan (Stacy Clausen) and cautiously anxious newcomer Naim (Joe Bird) — testing the limits of a new friendship. Approaching a snake as it’s swallowing a poisonous frog (Australia, where everything can kill you, and each other!), breaking into an abandoned mill, throwing stuff in the abandoned mill, wrestling their way into a bit of clandestine smooching in the late afternoon sunbeams on the floor of an abandoned mill. Damn, abandoned mills ran really do it all. Walking their bikes home, there’s a nonchalance to this clandestine burgeoning romance.

Chiarella leaves the details of backstory to the imagination. Naim is newish to town, he and his mom (Mia Wasikowska having aged gracefully into “deeply out of touch mom” roles might be the scariest twist of all) attend the same school and seemingly new-age church as Ryan. It’s only later, when Ryan’s discovered to be carrying on with another boy in town that we discover the sinister regressive attitudes underlying the town in the form of a supernatural “conversion therapy” session that’s more possession than exorcism. It’s in the aftermath of this unsettling ceremony that we see the unsettling consequences of the ritual.

Without revealing too much, the “pray away the gay” ritual has the opposite effect. A seductive and violent presence stalks its victims, coming to them when they’re alone, a clever horror mechanic that twists and actualizes intrusive thoughts of queer awakenings and ensuing isolation. In a cruel twist, we (and the boys) learn that the presence takes the form of whatever one desire’s the most. It’s a clever concept but wouldn’t work without the potent acting of the two leads. Joe Bird is a phenomenal avatar for these feelings of both lust and confusion; Stacy Clausen excels in a tricky dual role requiring both vulnerability and menace. That we see the demonic presence from only one of their perspectives is a brilliant decision, enhancing the inherent terror in vulnerability and the potent pull of attraction despite the possibility of looming danger.

As much as it’s a queer allegory of homophobia, the themes and precisely engineered tensions should play universally. As the boys navigate their feelings for each other and struggle to unravel the horrible mystery of what’s tormenting them, Chiarella crafts a layered story, building genuine scares amid the context of a budding romance and chemistry between the leads. With their push and pull dynamic pitting the potency of attraction against mortal danger, the film builds to a thrillingly choreographed climax that reckons with the unsettling realization that “home” isn’t always a synonym for “safe”.

Smart, fun, sexy, and scary? One of the stronger features I’ve saw at Sundance whose power lingered long after the credits rolled, I suspect it’ll play well even before midnight.

An earlier version of this review ran when Leviticus played as an official selection of the Sundance 2026 Film Festival in the Midnights program. It was since acquired by NEON and opens theatrically this weekend.

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