Leviticus (2026)
Leviticus is an intelligent and often affecting piece of Australian horror, even if it never quite gathers the force needed to become something truly haunting. It deserves admiration. Enthusiasm is a little harder to muster.
Directed by Adrian Chiarella and produced by Causeway Films, the company behind The Babadook and Talk to Me, the film arrives with a fair amount of anticipation attached to it. Australian horror has been enjoying a striking run in recent years, and Leviticus arrives in the midst of that resurgence. At moments, it comes close to standing alongside the country’s strongest recent efforts. At others, it feels as though it is carrying the weight of its intentions a touch too heavily.
The story centres on Naim (Joe Bird), a withdrawn teenager who moves with his deeply religious mother to a struggling country town in Victoria. There, he forms a tentative connection with Ryan (Stacy Clausen), another young man living under the watchful eye of a conservative Pentecostal community. When their growing feelings for one another come to light, events take a darker turn. What starts out as the condemnation of society doesn’t take long to become a supernatural threat that’s unleashed during a conversion ritual.
The film works best when it’s horror is grounded in recognisable human behaviour. The most unsettling scenes do not involve spectral visitations or jolting shocks. They arise from ordinary conversations, strained silences and expressions of concern that carry an unmistakable edge of judgement. Human beings have a long history of causing harm while persuading themselves they are doing good. By grounding its horror in that contradiction, Leviticus gives its supernatural elements emotional force.
Joe Bird anchors the picture beautifully. He brings an awkward vulnerability to Naim that feels wholly convincing. Nothing is overstated. Nothing feels manufactured. Stacy Clausen matches him well, and together they create a relationship that possesses warmth and credibility. Without that emotional grounding, the film would risk becoming an extended allegory with creatures attached. Horror has produced stranger combinations, admittedly, but perhaps not many.
Visually, Leviticus is often striking. Tyson Perkins photographs rural Victoria as a place suspended between neglect and memory, where abandoned buildings and weathered churches seem to harbour old grievances. Jed Kurzel’s score sits uneasily beneath the action, reinforcing the sense that Naim and Ryan are trapped in an environment that offers little refuge.
Yet the film never entirely escapes its own earnestness. Its symbolism, while intriguing, is sometimes pressed a little too insistently. In my view, horror gains power from suggestion, from allowing unsettling ideas to linger unresolved in the imagination. Leviticus occasionally appears anxious that viewers might miss its intentions, and so it spells them out. The final act, despite several effective sequences, loses some dramatic momentum as thematic concerns begin to crowd the suspense. One suspects the monster might have benefited from fewer moments of introspection and more time doing what monsters generally do.
Even so, Leviticus remains a worthwhile film. It is thoughtful, sincere and emotionally engaged. It falls short of the lasting impact achieved by Australia’s finest recent horror works, yet it lingers in the mind after the credits roll. Films with genuine conviction often do. Even when they stumble.