At the outset of Australian horror "Leviticus," two teenaged boys, Naim and Ryan, are falling in love.
Naim hates everything about the small town his single mother moved them to. That is until he meets Ryan.
The pair start out roughhousing, exploring and teasing each other — how many friendships between teen boys begin. Then that spark of kinship burns into something more.
Eventually the boys steal kisses in abandoned buildings and glances at church, as an innocent first-love blossoms.
But this is where "Leviticus" takes a turn.
The townsfolk of this Australian bush town cannot abide by the sins contained in the book of the bible the film derives its name from. And some parents turn to a mysterious healer to perform a ritual they hope will scare homosexuality out of their children - including Ryan and Naim. The ritual involves unleashing a malevolent entity that will stop at nothing to keep the boys apart even at the cost of taking their lives.
Essentially, here's how it works: The entity takes the form of the forbidden love or crush. To Naim, it appears as Ryan. To Ryan, it appears at Naim. Except it is unrelentingly violent and utterly terrifying.
This wild and heart-wrenching horror-romance was conjured up by writer/director Adrian Chiarella.
"The idea for this film came along because I wanted to explore this idea of homophobia and what it meant to me and what it meant to so many people in our community," Chiarella says of his debut feature.
"And I think I came up with this idea that what they're really trying to do with a lot of these sorts of practices you hear about, conversion therapy and those sorts of things, is they're trying to scare us away from our feelings, away from who we are."
In "Leviticus," the entire small town is involved. They are all complicit, even as it dawns on them that the so-called healer's ritual - which sees the boys seizing foaming at the mouth and choking - might not be the easy fix they were hoping for.
"I think they've been told that what this guy does, it works. Just trust him and it works. And so they all sort of buy into it," Chiarella says. "But I think there's a moment where they say, oh, this could take a slightly darker turn than we thought. So there is a moment of shock."
Parental advisory
The parents in the film are far from sympathetic. Still, at the beginning it's difficult to discern whether their concern is truly out of love or fear of being ostracized because of the sexuality of their children. Chiarella says that is purposeful.
"[Homophobia] can take the form of people masquerading as though they care about [you], you know, 'I'm just doing this because I don't want you to get hurt by other people who might hate you,'" Chiarella says.
"But that is kind of something that we found a little problematic in itself. And so I wanted to explore that, particularly with the character played by Mia Wasikowska (Naim's mother), but really all of the parents and this in the world of this film."
There are two types of parents in "Leviticus" There are the ones like Naim's mother who says she loves her son but seems either blind to or disinterested in his obvious anguish., And then others who are completely absent, leaving their gay children to either be destroyed by the evil entity or be bullied by the other local kids.
For Naim and Ryan, the results of this parental experiment are agonizing to watch: Wildeyed with fear, incapable of trusting who - or what - they see - the boys spiral as they look for safety - something that eludes them even in their own homes.
There is more than one monster in "Leviticus"
Although Naim and Ryan are stalked by this shape-shifting monster, Chiarella says it's far from the only villain in this story.
Even in the sweetest moments, bathed in the golden hue of a rural Australian sunset, the camera voyeuristically drags behind, almost at ground level, almost like a snake in the grass, stalking the boys before any ritual is performed or any entity is unleashed.
Chiarella says the specter of homophobia is always close behind.
"That was what I was trying to capture with the metaphor in this film," Chiarella explains. "You feel when you're moving through the world at that age, that there is this threat coming at you and sometimes it's coming at you from other kids who are your age. Sometimes it's coming at you from a more institutional level, like from parents or from teachers."
"I think some of the hardest scenes to film with this project were the ones where the real-world homophobia emerged."
Love endures
Adrian Chiarella says he was inspired to make his film after witnessing what he sees as a backslide in support for LGBTQ+ rights and sentiment.
He says that despite the voters of his home country Australia voting in favor of gay marriage at the tail end of 2017, online hate against gay people not only continued, it seemed to strengthen.
"We saw during that period a lot of really toxic rhetoric being platformed. And sure, we won that one. We got, I think, about more than two thirds of the country to vote to approve gay marriage," Chiarella says. "But it sort of. Unleashed all of this language that just never went away."
But Chiarella says regardless of setbacks, he is resolved to love. And he hopes after watching "Leviticus," you will too.
"Whatever kind of scars and trauma this leaves you with, you're still able to find love," Chiarella says.
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