With Leviticus, This First-Time Director Delivers a Standout Horror Film That Blends Real-World Intolerance With a Classic Curse Story

Leviticus will be released in theaters on June 19. A year of strong films from debut horror directors continues with Leviticus, the feature debut from Australian writer/director Adrian Chiarella. Joe Bird stars as Naim, a teenager living in a small, very religious town. Naim’s newfound secret romantic relationship with his classmate Ryan (Stacy Clausen) and subsequent discovery of Ryan’s dalliances with another boy, Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt), have terrible consequences when, fueled by jealousy, Naim outs Ryan and Hunter. When a so-called “Deliverance Healer” (Nicholas Hope) is called in by the community, his methods of stopping the boys from acting upon their urges involve very dangerous and potentially deadly methods. Amongst horror’s many subgenres, this is essentially a classic curse movie in which the curse causes those afflicted to see something that looks and sounds exactly like the person they most desire, only for that entity to attack and try to kill them when they let their guard down. And it’s a very well made curse movie, with Chiarella doing an excellent job both of setting the scene and building tension throughout the story, as these boys realize just how much danger th