The supernatural queer horror film Leviticus is quickly becoming one of the genre’s breakout successes, earning an impressive 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes and earning praise for its blend of horror and romance. Distributed by NEON, Leviticus had its world premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and has resonated with audiences and critics due to its unique approach to queer representation within a chilling supernatural storyline.
From writer-director Adrian Chiarella in his feature debut, Leviticus stars Joe Bird (Talk to Me), Stacy Clausen (Thrash), Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), and Jeremy Blewitt (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart). Set in a rural community, Leviticus follows teenage boys Naim (Bird) and Ryan (Clausen) as they develop a romantic connection. When the town subjects them to a traumatic conversion ritual, a terrifying shape-shifting entity is unleashed, taking on the appearance of the person each desires most—the other.
In our latest Popternative interview, we caught up with writer-director Adrian Chiarella and star Joe Bird to discuss the making of the film. Bird discussed preparing for both the intimate scenes with Clausen’s character and the film’s more physically demanding horror sequences. “[I was] doing a lot of chemistry callbacks so it kind of felt like I was working on this character even before we started production. It was just a lot of conversations with Adrian and our intimacy coordinator, Amy Kato, and a lot of rehearsals in pre-production to flesh out everything. So when [we went to film] it’s already been blocked out and it was a secondhand nature thing where we could just let it all go and have it be as authentic as possible.”
Chiarella shared insights into his collaborative process of developing characters alongside the cast. “I really wanted to know what Joe and Stacy wanted to bring to the characters. I wanted their thoughts on where the characters could go,” he said. “I was very open about ideas that they wanted to try the whole time. And I mean, that happened right from the casting workshops. We all sat together and tried different scenes out. And I wanted to know what ideas everyone was going to bring to the table,” Chiarella added.
Discussing the current momentum behind the horror genre, Chiarella also reflected on the growing enthusiasm among younger audiences and the excitement of seeing moviegoers return to theaters: “I went to see the last two amazing horror movies, Backrooms and Obsession, and the theaters were packed. This is back home in Australia and the theaters were packed full of young people; it was so amazing to see people going back to theaters again. And then as a bonus, our trailer played before both of those movies. It is really exciting.”
Watch the full conversation below.
Leviticus is playing in theaters.
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