LEVITICUS movie poster | ©2026 Neon

Rating: R
Stars: Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Jeremy Blewitt, Mia Wasikowska, Ewen Leslie, Davida McKenzie, Nicholas Hope
Writer: Adrian Chiarella
Director: Adrian Chiarella
Distributor: Neon
Release Date: June 19, 2026

“Conversion therapy,” for those thankfully unacquainted with the term and/or process, is designed to make LGBTQ people, largely (but not always) teens, lose their innate sexuality and become heterosexual. It is still legal in twenty-seven U.S. states. This “therapy” has been denounced by the American Psychiatric Association and has resulted in suicides and nervous breakdowns, but no provable “conversions.”

The phrase “conversion therapy” is never heard in LEVITICUS. Writer/director Adrian Chiarella has come up with an ingeniously potent religious/supernatural metaphor for the practice.

Upfront, we get a preview of what is to come, where a young woman at a swimming pool shower appears to be having a date with, and then torn apart by, someone or something only she can see and hear.

LEVITICUS is set in a small town in Australia, where teen Naim (Joe Bird) and his mother Arlene (Mia Wasikowska) have moved after the death of his father/her husband. Mum is very religious and promptly joins a welcoming but strict congregation led by Pastor Rob (Ewen Leslie). When Arlene testifies in church that she has found solace in silence, it’s a warning sign that she may not be open to listening to Naim.

Meanwhile, shy Naim’s life is considerably enlivened when he is befriended by jock schoolmate Ryan (Stacy Clausen). The two use an abandoned structure to make out and perhaps do more.

But then Naim sees Ryan kissing Pastor Rob’s son Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt). In a fit of jealousy, Naim hints about what he saw to Rob.

That’s enough for Pastor Rob to call in the mysterious “Deliverance Healer” (Nicholas Hope). The man performs a ritual on Hunter and Ryan, using just a disposable lighter and an incantation.

Both youths end up vomiting and writhing on the floor, but that’s not the end of it. Naim witnesses first Hunter, then Ryan, interacting with an invisible (to Naim) figure as though they are doing something romantic, only for each to come away bloodied and terrified. Ryan is specifically terrified of Naim.

Then Arlene deduces that Naim may be gay and inflicts the Deliverance Healer on him. Soon Naim is being approached by an entity that looks and sounds exactly like Ryan but tries to tear him to pieces as soon as he puts himself in reach.

Naim and Ryan soon learn they are only safe when they are actually together, or around other people. Isolation here can literally kill.

LEVITICUS is disturbing, moving, and sometimes truly frightening (there are a couple of highly effective jump scares). The young actors are excellent, with Bird and Clausen giving us different iterations of the combination of truculence and vulnerability particular to adolescents, and Clausen is terrifying when he’s embodying the malign spirit. Wasikowska invites both our pity and our anger as Naim’s loving but rigid mother.

Chiarella takes advantage of the empty areas common to suburbs the world over. A place that is mundane can become a soul-bruising void, and we soon feel melancholy as well as fearful.

On a meta level, any story using analogies to talk about LGBTQ people, or any other marginalized group (including women, races, and religions), has to be careful. Once a narrative takes on the burden of messaging, it risks adding to the mass of demonizing propaganda that’s already out there, depending on the tale’s outcome.

There is, therefore, an intensifying of audience curiosity as LEVITICUS proceeds. Is it going to wind up, perhaps inadvertently, making a homophobic statement? If not, and Chiarella knows what he’s saying, how will it avoid this fate?

At the risk of being spoilery, Chiarella is clear on the statement he and LEVITICUS are putting forth. A key line of dialogue that is given twice hints at the resolution before we reach one that is touching and even heartening, at the same time it acknowledges that it’s hard to banish the threat it addresses.

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