By Alice Preputnick; Photo Credits to Alice Preputnick
If there is one thing I love more than finding a new favorite movie, it’s rewatching a movie I love with people who haven’t seen it. Over the summer, I saw the 2026 movie “Leviticus” in theaters twice, and Iloved it both times. The other night, I watched it again with some of my friends that hadn’t watched it yet.
This film focuses on a boy named Naim who just moved to a new town and starts a relationship with Ryan, a boy from his new school. When the town finds out about Naim and Ryan’s sexuality, they hire an exorcist to “fix” them. This unleashes an entity after them that takes the form of the person they desire most, which is each other.
Both lead actors in this movie are new and unknown faces to the industry, which is what drew me to the movie in the first place. I think casting new actors in the leading role is beneficial for the audiencebecause it makes their acting more believable. . Since I didn’t have any other impression of these actors before, I was able to fully accept that they were their characters.
Joe Bird, who played Naim, gave a stellar performance. His subtle facial expressions made everything his character did seem real to me. The way he reacted to the events going down was incredibly believable. The actor who played Ryan, Stacy Clausen, also gave a spectacular and believable performance. I really sympathized with his character. The scene toward the beginning of the film where Naim walks up to Ryan in the store after the exorcism is heartbreaking, and it’s due to Clausen’s acting.
Mia Wasikowska, the actress that played Naim’s mom, had a haunting performance. The way her character delivered her lines when she was talking to Naim was phenomenal. Toward the end of the film, her character tells Naim “We need fear, Naim. It’s how we survive.” Hearing her say this genuinely sent chills down my spine, especially because Naim just told her he’s being chased by something that’s hurting him.
“Leviticus” is labeled as a horror film, but I think it’s more of a romance with horror elements. The entire plot circled around Naim and Ryan’s feelings for each other and how the religious community around them reacted to it. I think this film portrayed the religious trauma that comes with being a part of the LGBTQ+ community very well, especially for those living in small towns that revolve around the church. By adding the horror elements and actualizing the trauma through the entity that chases Naim and Ryan, it perfectly ties these things together.
This film had a bunch of cool shots which I really appreciated. There are a few shots of Naim and his mom driving in their car. When this happened, the camera was solely on one of the two characters andshowed the background disappearing behind them. This helped establish the bleak and dismal atmosphere of their town. The muted coloring in the shots contributes well to the eeriness of the film and is oddly comforting to me.
My only real complaint with this movie is that it felt short, with the runtime being an hour and 27 minutes. While I usually prefer movies to be around this length, I feel like this movie could have included more about Ryan and his encounters with the entity. The pacing of this film is slower than most movies, but I do think it works out well. I also enjoyed how they didn’t fully explain the entity and its rules. If they had given any more explanation, I think it would’ve been way too much. They left room for the audience to interpret the entity and the film’s ending in a few different ways but still made it clear that it wouldn’t stop chasing them and would always be there in the background, proven when the entity version of Ryan is seen outside the bus at the end of the film.
I’ve seen this movie three times now. It doesn’t need a rewatch, but it deserves one. I’ve noticed so many things each time I’ve seen it, and it just makes me like the movie more. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend checking it out.