The young actors of Leviticus understand the temptation to call their film “the Heated Rivalry of horror,” a nickname it earned from critics out of the Sundance Film Festival back in January.
The standout from Aussie director Adrian Chiarella centers on a love story between two teenage boys, with a dash of “spice” and heaping spoonfuls of yearning. While there’s no rivalry per se, there is a shape-shifting entity that will attack a victim in the guise of their lover. So, technically, one could argue there is an air of lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers.
“Heated Rivalry meets It Follows” became another descriptor in the press. “It’s two great titles that it’s being compared to, so it isn’t bad at all,” Joe Bird, known for his role in viral horror hit Talk to Me, tells Entertainment Weekly with his costar, Stacy Clausen. “I think they still work on different levels and achieve different kinds of emotions out of the audience. With Heated Rivalry, such a big, queer media to blow up in the past year, it’s just great to see that gay media does get watched by people.”
“Obviously, there’s a lot of hype around Heated Rivalry at the moment. So it’s kind of expected that the comparisons will come,” Clausen acknowledges. “But, yeah, I fully agree that it is completely its own thing.” Leviticus, which has since gone on to play at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, continues to drum up positive word of mouth ahead of a theatrical premiere this June 19. The inventive approach from a first-time feature-film director so directly speaks to queer audiences underneath the crowd-pleasing premise.
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