Written By: Ania Rosales
Edited By: Anna French
Photo courtesy of The Guardian, image licensed by Ben Sauders
Adrian Chiarella’s directorial debut, Leviticus (2026), is a film about the battle against the fear of queer love. The movie follows Naim and Ryan, two boys in a small conservative town, who are subjected to exorcisms upon discovery of their queerness. At its core, Leviticus materializes the fear of love faced by the 2SLGBTQIA+ community through a supernatural entity. Said entity has a critical vulnerability that undercuts the film’s fear factor in the eyes of certain viewers. However, diminishing the movie’s merit as a horror film because the bad guy is “easy to beat” is a failure to grasp the film’s argument: one must not simply outlive internalized homophobia, but learn to be yourself despite it.
The film opens with a scene of the two hanging out in a deserted location, teasing and tackling each other until the moment leads to a kiss. Deciding to keep their affair a secret, the boys continue their lives as usual until Naim spots Ryan kissing Hunter, another boy from the town, and decides to tell the town’s priest about his sighting out of jealousy. An exorcist performs a ritual on Hunter and Ryan. Not long after, Naim suffers the same fate, leading him to discover what the ritual is all about. As The Guardian puts it, in Leviticus, “queer desire is a deadly curse.” The exorcism curses you with an entity that takes the shape of the person to whom you are most attracted. Approaching you only when you are alone, it will lure you into lowering your defences before attacking to kill you. In Naim and Ryan’s case, their entities take the form of each other.
Throughout its runtime, the film portrays the effects of internalized homophobia, which are often amplified by sexual orientation and gender identity expression change efforts (SOGIECE). Not only is physical abuse a direct result of the exorcism (as seen in the murderous nature of the entity), but the ritual also culminates in the characters living in fear, anxiety, and increased isolation from their peers. Additionally, the curse eventually kills Hunter, his death portraying the lives taken by SOGIECE.
SOGIECE has been proven to increase the odds of the victim to think about, plan, and attempt suicide by up to 88%
The entity materializes as a result of the ritual, but fear was there long before the exorcism. It was there in the boy’s choice of hideout, in their early promise not to tell anyone about their encounter, in their avoidance of each other anywhere but in private—fear of others finding out was ever-present. More importantly, there was a fear of love itself, exacerbated by the ritual. The film represents this notion throughout the story, and while Naim and Ryan’s case was of a typical conversion“therapy” attempt, these effects can be experienced by any member of the queer community.
However, a feature of the story might lead the audience to overlook what the entity stands for, and as a result undermine the power of Leviticus as a horror film. Towards the end of the movie, the characters find out that the creature is vulnerable to fire, leading to Naim lighting a warehouse on fire and trapping the entity inside. As he runs away, he finds himself at a bus stop face-to-face with the real Ryan, not the curse taking his form. Deciding to leave the town together, they hop on the next bus. Through the window, the audience sees the entity standing on the road staring right back at Naim. He understands that the entity did not die and might never. As a result, the audience might believe that the entity is, ultimately, easy to beat—one only has to carry a lighter everywhere, and the creature will keep its distance. While it is likely that Naim will do this anyway, there is so much more that goes into beating the entity. In the premiere at Sundance Film Festival, director Adrian Chiarella points out that Leviticus “was inspired by stories about conversion therapy, but really it’s about being afraid of your own desires.” It is a story about repression and internalized fear. In spite of this, audience opinions can miss the point of the film, focusing too much on how to defeat the physical entity rather than what it is meant to represent.
Quotations will be used when referring to conversion ‘therapy’ as it “is not a real form of medical therapy”
If one understands the implications of Leviticus’s monster, it should be impossible to regard the entity as “easy to beat.” Once a character equips themselves with the tools needed, it is unlikely the monster will kill them, but are they truly beating the entity or just surviving it? In Leviticus, the main antagonist is not a tangible monster, but fear, and that is something that cannot burn. That is why Ryan’s imitation survived the fire. Trauma takes and, especially for those who have experienced sexual orientation change efforts, can linger forever. Leviticus does not lose power as a horror film because its antagonist is easy to survive. Instead, the film is even more disturbing because it uses survival as a red herring. Conversion “therapy” capitalizes on people’s survival instincts to convince them to change, especially where abuse is present. Simply choosing to survive, instead of living as your true self, is to let the abusers win. In Leviticus, the only way to beat the bad guy is by understanding that the entity might chase you forever, that it will be recurrently painful, and choosing to be yourself anyway. It is by rejecting all instincts and easy ways out that one can beat the horror film and, finally, learn to love without fear.
