‘Leviticus’ Review: Powerful Performances Overshadowed by Reductive Horror

Writer/director Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus has important things to say, and there are two performances at its center I hope lead to more of a career for both Joe Bird and Stacy Clausen. Visually, there’s a lot to appreciate. The industrial, suburban wasteland of Australia, smoke stacks, abandoned mills. There’s beauty in all of this. But ultimately, this is an ineffective film, and one that’s glaringly reductive of It Follows in plot, execution, style, and even theme.

I doubt the debt is on purpose, but I’d be very surprised if it isn’t at least subconsciously infused, because the allusions are so direct. The industrial wasteland evoking the suburban gothic beauty of It Follows. Entities showing up out of nowhere. The slow burn pacing. The sexual manifestation of someone walking at you, summoned by your personal choices. It’s all in there.

The other issue is that the film is cripplingly earnest, which detracts from the powerful message at its core. Leviticus is shocking and honest about homophobia and repression, but a bit saccharine when it needs to be braver. It’s also surprisingly, and I don’t like this word, neutered. For a film about sex and repression and the queer male experience, living in the dangers of horror and outsider art, I don’t understand why there wasn’t more of a sexual charge. There’s a real ache between the two leads, but the delivery of queer love stays close to chaste. The one sexual scene is so softened and cute. I’m not saying a film has to have sex in it, but when a film is about the repression of queer male passion, it would have been braver to show what they’re fighting for, what’s being taken from them. Show us: you can’t repress this. This is who we are. It’s impossible to.