There is definitely a weird discourse to be had around Leviticus, and I’ve already encountered remnants of it leading up to finally seeing the film. Because of the way Leviticus is structured, the things it’s asking the audience to believe, and the situation it sets up for its characters, it can come across as oddly homophobic for a film that is simultaneously so LGBTQ-forward. The main characters here are queer, which should be a win in our book, but this Australian horror film has them trapped in a situation where those of us in the audience who are constantly thinking about the logical choices characters should be making in horror movies can decipher exactly what those choices should be. Unfortunately, those choices somehow feel regressive in terms of pride and representation. So, while I’m a blind film critic, I’m also a gay film critic, and it’s hard for me to come in and say that I didn’t like Leviticus. Especially when the film is clearly trying to make a statement about the damage caused by religious intolerance and the way queer people are taught to fear their own desires. I don’t disagree with that message. I just wish I liked the movie delivering it.
This is actually a film I was hoping to screen way back in June, but Neon didn’t come in clutch with a screener back then. Which is fine. My life went on anyway, and I eventually caught the film because I was intrigued by something that wasn’t universally loved but seemed to have enough support behind it. I wanted to get on board with Leviticus, but I just can’t. Unfortunately, this is a film that trips and falls on its face before it ever really goes anywhere. It’s also one of those frustrating experiences where I can see the film that the filmmakers probably thought they were making, and I can understand why someone might connect with it on a deeply personal level. I just couldn’t get there myself. There is a difference between recognizing the importance of a film’s intentions and actually enjoying the finished product, and Leviticus is a pretty good example of that distinction.
Leviticus centers around Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen), a pair of closeted gay teenagers who are trying to hide the fact that they’re hooking up while living among religious zealots. It is likely that very zealotry that summons some weird It Follows-type demon that attaches a curse to these two boys, as well as a third boy, Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt), and another unfortunate character who meets their demise in the opening sequence, like any good horror movie. Mia Wasikowska also appears as Naim’s mother, Arlene, adding another recognizable face to this otherwise relatively small Australian ensemble. The way this curse operates is that the entity presents itself as the person you’re most infatuated with. So, for these boys, it presents itself as each other. This means they can’t tell whether they’re having a conversation with the real person or some manipulative version of that person who wants to kill them. The adults are no help, which is pretty typical for a horror film centered around teenagers, and the film is a little slow because the body count is impossibly low, given the limited number of characters affected by the curse.
When you look at a film like It Follows, you can actually see what the obvious solution would be. That particular entity only seems scary if you don’t go anywhere. If you just hole up in one location, it’s eventually going to catch up to you. So, my motivation would be to become a flight attendant. That thing walks so slowly that, as I’m flying around the world, I could easily get a good night’s sleep knowing it’s still on another continent. Here, the easy answer for this Leviticus version of It Follows is that these two boys simply agree not to see each other. Or, based on the mechanics of the film, the entity seems to leave them alone when they’re around other people. So, ideally, they should find somewhere to live that isn’t this regressive asshole of a town. But since they don’t seem particularly interested in leaving home just yet, their best bet is to break up for their own safety. I realize that horror movies aren’t necessarily supposed to function as instructional manuals for surviving supernatural encounters, but there has to be some level of internal logic. Otherwise, you’re just watching people make increasingly terrible decisions because the screenplay needs them to.
And no, it’s not homophobic to suggest that. As a matter of fact, it’s realistic. If this were a film where the curse followed anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, and you were faced with being attacked by your loved one, knowing that your loved one also runs the risk of being attacked by you, the natural choice would be to keep each other safe by agreeing to stay away from one another. At some point, one of these boys should simply tell the other that he’s leaving and never coming back, or that they’re breaking up and should never see each other again. That’s just not really the direction the film goes in. It hints at this early on, when the boys aren’t entirely sure what’s happening to them. They keep getting attacked by versions of each other, and for a moment, it almost seems like they’re trapped in an abusive relationship. But once they understand more about what’s happening, they still can’t figure out the most basic way to protect themselves. If they had an agreement to stay away from each other, then every time one of them appeared, the other would know it was the demon. Don’t let the wrong one in. Problem solved. Or at least you’ve created a pretty significant obstacle for the entity to overcome.
I think this is where the film’s central metaphor actually starts working against it. Because the idea of two gay teenagers being forced apart by a supernatural manifestation of religious hatred is certainly not lost on me. It’s a pretty obvious metaphor, actually. The problem is that the film has created a situation where separating these two characters is not just something their intolerant community wants, but something that genuinely makes sense for their survival. That’s an unfortunate corner to write yourself into when your movie is supposed to be criticizing the very people who want these boys kept apart. I don’t think that makes Leviticus an intentionally homophobic film, but I do think it creates an awkward contradiction that the screenplay never satisfactorily addresses. You can have a powerful metaphor, but you still have to make the actual story work around it.
As a result, I didn’t have a lot of fun with Leviticus, nor did I find myself particularly invested in these characters or their choices. I didn’t think the film was especially scary because I could see practically every single scene coming a mile away. The film wants to explore the intersection of queer desire, religious repression, and the fear of being persecuted for loving someone, and there’s certainly something worth exploring there. But when the horror mechanics are so dependent on the characters refusing to make obvious decisions, it becomes increasingly difficult to appreciate what the film is trying to say. I understand that there’s a metaphor here about being forced to separate from someone you love, but that metaphor doesn’t automatically make the decisions these characters are making any more believable. And while I appreciate that writer-director Adrian Chiarella is attempting to use horror to explore these themes, the film never really finds a way to surprise me. The scares become repetitive, the tension never builds to the level it should, and I found myself spending more time questioning the screenplay than worrying about whether these boys would survive.
The audio description I received was Australian, which was fun. Neon likely benefited from the fact that this Australian film already had accessibility created for its home market and simply brought that track over here. However, there were some interesting choices in the audio description that didn’t necessarily work for me. Instead of actually describing some of the bloody violence, the narration occasionally seemed content to offer a blanket explanation that something gory was happening. That’s not particularly helpful when you’re relying on the audio description to understand exactly what’s taking place. Horror is a genre where the specific details of what happens to somebody can be incredibly important. There’s a big difference between telling me that something violent happened and actually describing the violence in a way that allows me to understand the scene. So, I wasn’t overly impressed with the accessibility here either, even if I appreciated that the film had audio description in the first place.
There is a premise here in Leviticus, but it’s a premise that needed more room to breathe. It needed a more realistic perspective on how these characters would respond to their situation, and it probably needed a larger cast so the film could expand its mythology and actually have some people to kill off. With such a small group of characters and such a limited body count, there’s not enough happening to sustain the tension, especially when the scares become so predictable. I wanted to support what Leviticus was trying to accomplish, and I certainly appreciate seeing queer characters at the center of a horror film. But representation alone doesn’t make a movie good, and having something meaningful to say doesn’t excuse a screenplay that can’t figure out how to make its own premise work. I’m not going to recommend a movie simply because I agree with its politics or because I appreciate the community it’s attempting to represent. That would be doing the film, and frankly the audience, a disservice. Ultimately, Leviticus is a horror film with an interesting idea, a frustrating execution, and a curse that might have been considerably less effective if its victims had simply learned how to set boundaries. Sometimes the scariest thing in a horror movie isn’t the monster. It’s realizing that the characters are never going to make the obvious decision that could save their lives.
Rotten: 5.4/10
