'Leviticus' (2026) Film Review

This Australian supernatural horror-romance follows sensitive teenager Naim (pronounced “name,” confusingly), whose relationship with his confident and athletic classmate Ryan upsets their cultish Christian community. One of my friends described the plot as “gay It Follows,” which just about sums it up. After two horrifying exorcism scenes, the boys (and their pastor’s son Hunter, who is also in love with Ryan) are followed by malignant forces that look like each other. The entity takes the form of whomever its victim loves most, luring them in and then trying to kill them. For logistical reasons, it can only attack when its victim is alone.

Naturally this leads to a lot of terrifying scenes where Naim interacts with something that looks like Ryan but probably isn’t. This constant threat of betrayal, of being suddenly turned on by loved ones, taps into something very primal in the gay psyche.

The actors are really, really good. You might recognise Joe Bird, who plays Naim, as the boy who starts violently self-harming halfway through Talk To Me. Again he’s cast as “sensitive kid who gets possessed,” and is completely believable at it. All of the characters (apart from the creepy pastor) seem like people you could well meet in everyday life. The dialogue is naturalistic.

The ending of the film is a bit anticlimactic, with a lot of questions left unanswered, but it’s not the kind of film that can really end in a satisfying way. Like many contemporary horrors, the monster is a thinly-veiled metaphor for a real, as-yet-unsolved societal issue. In that way, they can’t ever truly defeat it - they can only live with it as best they can.