When I first watched Leviticus, it felt like I had seen it before. It was almost eerie — the sense of remembering a memory, a familiarity that made no logical sense. The film’s director, Adrian Chiarella, describes the film as “a story about overcoming the fears of your own feelings.” This simple idea has become the key to understanding why the film has impacted me so deeply. The film expands beyond the horror genre and taps into something far more personal that all audiences can relate to in some shape or form. For me, it became a confrontation with my own fears and self-doubt that I had spent years avoiding.
Leviticus follows two teenage boys – Ryan (Stacy Clausen) and Naim (Joe Bird) – who become tormented by a demonic entity summoned by their religious community to put a stop to what the community views as deviant behavior. The entity takes the form of the person they desire most, and in this case, it’s each other.
Chiarella emphasizes that the film is intentionally a commentary on conversion therapy and homophobia. Because of the ritual the young men are forced to go through, an act of bigotry places a demon within its victims, rather than expelling one. The result is a tender queer horror film in which the true threat is not desire itself, but the shame and fear imposed upon it.
At just eighty-seven minutes, the film is remarkably restrained. While part of me wanted another two hours with its characters, there is also something perfect about its simplicity. The film does not indulge in prolonged suffering. There is a quiet confidence to its storytelling. It trusts its audience to understand the cruelty of the world these characters inhabit without forcing them to endure endless trauma to prove it. In an era where so many stories mistake suffering for depth, Leviticus feels almost refreshing.
The simplicity of the film’s premise and its tight execution feel like an intentional invitation to the audience. Leviticus is certainly specific in its queer themes, but it also feels profoundly universal. The film understands how easy it is to fear your own desires and, in turn, parts of yourself. Self-acceptance has become such an overused, therapy-speak term, but Leviticus turns it into something truly confronting and real. It forces you to reflect on the parts of yourself you’ve subconsciously spent years avoiding, facing what feels unreachable, desires you’ve been taught to distrust, and futures you’ve convinced yourself are impossible.
It doesn’t hide behind layers of pretension, as independent cinema so often does. The film simply trusts that if it tells its story honestly and with sincerity, audiences will find themselves within it. In doing so, it becomes the rare kind of film that feels deeply personal while remaining remarkably accessible.
For myself, and I imagine many others, the emotional connection is perhaps most evident in the film’s ending. The ending presents possibility and even hope. Ryan and Naim choose each other, refusing to let fear dictate who they are or how they love. It is not a neat resolution and leaves some questions still unanswered. Some viewers may argue that the demon will continue to stalk them throughout their lives, while others may see it as finally losing its power now that they have chosen to live in spite of it. But it doesn’t really matter how you view the ending and what comes next. What matters is that they keep going. The film’s ending becomes an act of love for Ryan, Naim, and us. It believes they deserve a future lived without fear. In doing so, it suggests that perhaps we do too.
As the credits rolled, I found myself thinking about my own life and the quiet fear that it is passing me by and that I have waited too long. That there are versions of my life I should have lived, opportunities I should have taken instead of letting them drift past.
Maybe that is why the film felt so familiar before I ever saw it. As though some part of me had already been carrying it around, waiting to discover it within me. Not the film itself, but the fears it would eventually bring to the surface. The fear of accepting myself, the fear of wanting more from life, the fear that it might already be too late.
Leviticus ultimately understands that self-acceptance is a choice we must make. The film ends with Ryan and Naim accepting who they are, instead of running from it. Their victory is not from defeating the demon, but it comes from refusing to see their desires as something monstrous. They still chose each other, and thus, chose themselves.
In watching this choice, I found myself confronting the parts of my life that I had kept buried within. My own desires that I had begun to fear because they seemed too ambitious, too unrealistic, too undeserved. Why have I not chosen myself? I think back to Chiarella’s quote about how we fear our own feelings. Leviticus challenges me to embrace my feelings, to extend compassion and hope to myself, in the same way it extends it to its characters.
In Ryan and Naim’s acceptance and hope for the future, I found my own salvation.
Leviticus suggests that the things we long for are not always as distant as they seem, that the life we imagine for ourselves may still be waiting for us if we are brave enough to reach for it.
It reminded me that there is still time. That another future is possible. As Ryan and Naim ride off into the sunset together to their new future, I stopped mourning the future I thought I had missed and began imagining the one still waiting for me.
Essay Courtesy of Kam Ryan
Feature Image Credit to NEON