Leviticus

The title points to the religious world in small-town Victoria, Australia. (That both films take place in isolated rural settings highlights the ways familial and local communities frequently hinder queer happiness.) Naim Reid (Joe Bird), like Coley in “Girls Like Girls,” is also a newcomer. Bird, following his debut in 2022’s “Talk to Me,” now looks like a younger, more pensive Barry Keoghan. Naim wastes no time before casually making out with the more emotionally distant Ryan Whelan (Stacy Clausen), who sometimes makes out with the pastor’s kid (Jeremy Blewitt). They also take turns throwing rocks at each other out of ritualistic condemnation more than masochism.

Despite being set in the present rather than reaching into the past, the homophobia is stronger and more visible in “Leviticus.” A religious man known as the “deliverance healer” prays the gay away for three young men who swap spit. The trauma of this non-acceptance incarnates as a demon of homosexual desire in the form of one’s current romantic interest that eventually kills the victim. A supernatural slasher where the killer is a personification of homoerotic desire that the victims must either flee or fight, subtle is not an adjective one can use to describe “Leviticus.” The deliverance healings are even shot with the same filmic grammar as classic Hollywood exorcisms: scripture and seizures. 

The religious commentary is most obvious around conversion therapy, but it’s more interesting in the relationship between Ryan and Hunter, the pastor’s kid. Their attraction makes a mélange of desire and violence to reflect the world they inhabit. Homosexuality is something that needs to be beaten out, their rock-throwing attests. It also cleverly recalls the woman caught in adultery from the Gospel of John and the rocks Jesus stops from being cast in her direction. 

Chiarella shows promise as a maker of symbols.

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