Leviticus (2026)

"They want us to be afraid."

This line from the clever and frightening Leviticus captures a concept that queer people know inherently. The heterosexist world wants queer people to be afraid to be themselves and to experience the joy of love and sex as we experience it. This is what is behind the story of Leviticus, where a monster of some sort (which remains ever present but invisible - just like homophobia) is designed to make us terrified of the thing that brings us joy and fulfillment. We are to be constantly in fear. 

Leviticus makes good use of this simple yet brilliant idea to craft a film that is scary, both in moments and in its overall haunting aura, but also moving in how this terror affects the peope it inflicts. Perhaps it is one of the most salient attempts on screen to communicate the way homophobia feels to those who don't personally experience it. 

Unlike some other recent horror films which perhaps stray from their clever conceits to pack in more traditional scary monster movie moments, Leviticus sticks to its script and lets the horror come from its situation instead of from being demonic. There are some "scary" scenes with a jump scare or physical attack, but the film mostly stays away from them or puts them off screen so that we are left with more of an aching sense of dread, wondering when the shoe will drop. The more I reflect on this, the more I see just how much this feels like living gay in a mandatory-straight world. 

Bird and Clausen are wonderful together, both playing the loves and the terrors of the other. And there is a quiet beauty to the ending which finds the way to defeat this horror is to come together, to be together. The very thing this monster is trying to stop us from doing. 

Leviticus 

Starring: Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Mia Wasikowska 

Writer/Director: Adrian Chiarella