By PAYTON McCARTY-SIMAS
Starring Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen and Mia Wasikowska
Written and directed by Adrian Chiarella
NEON
In our increasingly homophobic era, it’s almost surprising that there aren’t more horror films about conversion therapy and its psychological consequences. Adrian Chiarella’s directorial debut, LEVITICUS, seeks to rectify that oversight, offering up a tender teenage love story frayed by bigotry and numbed by despair. Though there’s a significant amount of potential in LEVITICUS as a modern queer nightmare, the film is shockingly derivative of 2014’s It Follows. I overheard David Robert Mitchell’s name come up many more times than Chiarella’s as I left this weekend’s Overlook Film Festival screening. Chiarella’s film studiously copies It Follows‘ look, tone and even its structural narrative. These odd choices, paired with the film’s somewhat vague internal logic and penchant for literalminded expository dialogue, make the result something of a letdown – even as the experience of watching it moment to moment is consistently engaging.
LEVITICUS begins with Naim (Joe Bird of Talk to Me) and his born-again mother (Mia Wasikowska) having just moved to Victoria. The landscape is sparse, dry and dotted with massive concrete buildings and oil refinery towers. Naim wanders through this suburban wasteland alongside Ryan (Stacy Clausen), whose bravura and teasing just barely elide the mutual attraction they share. After breaking into an old mill and throwing debris around for a minute, the two end up wrestling, then making out. For a scared loner like Naim, this connection is clearly a lifeline in this new, unforgiving place – the only one he has outside of the church that boys’ parents doggedly attend as a solution to their own alienation. When he sees Ryan tangled in the arms of another boy, he breaks and snitches to their pastor. An exorcism follows soon thereafter (quoth Leviticus 18:22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination”), and boys begin dropping dead in strange, kinky ways. After Naim is outed and exorcised, the two are forced to navigate their uneasy connection to save their own skins. The (rather pulpy) problem is, this internalized homophobia demon takes on the guise of whoever a person finds the most attractive, and for them it’s each other, making it hard to tell whether their next embrace will be their last.
Bird and Clausen’s chemistry is palpable and warm, bringing a well-lived-in teenage feeling to the story. The former’s twitchy, shy sweetness is complemented beautifully by the latter’s emo golden retriever vibe. While both are wonderful to watch, Clausen is the film’s standout, bringing hurt, tenderness and vivacity to this story of new love. Bird, for his part, uses his eyes like tractor beams, locking the object of his affection in his sights only to widen them in horror, sweeping empty parking lots, bus depots and sleepy skating rinks for danger. The supporting cast has the less enjoyable task of telling the audience exactly what’s going on thematically, frequently cutting the tension that Tyson Perkins (Went Up the Hill)’s artfully hermetic cinematography and Nick Fenton (American Animals)’s devilishly slow editing otherwise build nicely.
Aside from its derivativeness, the film’s other problem is its script. Breaking the cardinal rule of storytelling, it tells rather than shows. Its monster rules are vague, and too-easy conveniences abound. This could easily be put down to first-feature syndrome because Chiarella’s direction is noteworthy. But as these issues accumulate, the story loses structural integrity. LEVITICUS clearly wants to be a dark romantic drama far more than it wants to be a horror movie, and it’s a shame that it isn’t.
