Leviticus

Sundance favorite Leviticus expounds daringly on the horror-movie truism that sexual desire makes you vulnerable—notably, to gruesome death. Named for the book of the Old Testament used to justify homophobia, the wrenching and terrifying feature debut from Adrian Chiarella begins with Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) breaking into an abandoned mill, their matey horseplay soon surrendering to its powerful homoerotic subtext. Fans of Heated Rivalry will appreciate how Chiarella draws out the intuitive connections that form beneath the show of machismo that the young men take pains to maintain for their traditional community—in this case, the provincial Australian town where Naim’s mother (Mia Wasikowska in a complex, calibrated performance) has relocated them, dragging him along to a local church’s praise meetings in search of fellowship. Gothic iconography lurks in Chiarella’s oppressive and foreboding widescreen compositions, and soon, after Ryan and another boy are subjected to a disturbing exorcism intended to cure them of their urges, the community’s queer youths, already picked on, begin to be picked off by a spectral killer that appears to them in the form of their forbidden love objects. Ingeniously complicating the deep interrelation between teen sexuality and slasher movie iconography, and staging his set pieces with chilling precision, Chiarella announces himself as a new Aussie horror auteur to stand alongside Jennifer Kent and the Philippous. A NEON release.