SXSW London 2026: Leviticus

Anchored by the unprecedented mass success of Obsession, together with A24’s box office record breaker Backrooms, horror’s new guard of young, impressionable filmmakers is already beating this summer’s slate of superhero blockbusters at their own game. They display a knack for tapping into the modern zeitgeist. The psychological struggles of identity, social interaction, and trust that many of us can relate to in a post-COVID world driven by the digital. These themes are particularly prevalent among today’s young adults, the prime audience for a film like Leviticus.

Adrian Chiarella’s feature debut is already a buzzy source of fan edits and character shipping across the internet, despite limited news of its international theatrical availability. Reaping comparisons to Heated Rivalry and It Follows, Leviticus lives up to its name as a film that, by nature of transgression, goes against conservative religious and moral principles. Carried by some sublime, passionate performances, it’s a tender, twisted tale of biblical proportions rolled into a relatable coming-of-age package.

Returning to the undeniably fresh realm of internalised Australian horror, Joe Bird leads this project, after appearing in 2022’s Talk to Me, with the sharp command to carry the heavy burden of a character like Naim: a teenage boy with few friends and very little comfort in the fundamentalist community he is not made for. Naim quickly catches feelings for Ryan, played by another rising newcomer in Stacy Clausen. Confronted with the terror of conversion rituals, they unleash an evil shapeshifting entity that takes the form of the one they desire the most: each other.

Even in the face of a supernatural force, Clausen expertly contorting his corpus through gnarly exorcism, both the romantic and sexual chemistry exhibited by the pair is palpable and close to real life as it gets. Chiarella directs with an eye of entrapment: his characters are cursed for eternity, outrunning each other in the dreary, industrial landscapes of rural Victoria and Melbourne. Slow zooms accentuate the pervasive threat. Distorted reflections speak to a stifling battle of self-acceptance. Smoke billows in the beige sky as if a warning sign from God himself.

Leviticus‘ final moments take a couple of minutes to process, too abrupt, maybe for such an absorbing theatrical watch. But its lingering effects are enough to confirm another exciting, emotionally resonant arrival of a queer horror classic for generations to come.