LEVITICUS is a queer horror which follows teenage boys Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacey Clausen) who strike up an unexpected connection. But when their bond draws the attention of their community, a ritual is performed on them, releasing a violent entity.The entity that takes the form of the victim’s truest desire–which for Naim and Ryan, is each other.
Following a solid string of Australian-made horror films, and before Leviticus hits Australian cinemas on June 18, Nick L’Barrow spoke with writer-director Adrian Chiarella about combining a coming-of-age queer romance with a religious horror, and appreciating the mytholoigical storytelling of the Bible.
Nick: As a fan of horror films, I always appreciate when filmmakers are able to tell really intimate stories or explore complex themes through the genre, which is something you do here in Leviticus. It’s a bit of a chicken or the egg question – but which idea did you start working on first? Was it the adolescent queer romance story, or the horror film about homophobia?
Adrian Chiarella: It really is a chicken or the egg thing. I wanted to make a film about what was happening for many of us in the queer community over the last few years, which is a feeling that things had been regressing a little bit. We’d had all of this progress, and then the last few years in the political sphere there was a lot of homophobic rhetoric that had sort of entered the landscape. And I wanted to do something that didn’t just go back to the kinds of films I watched 30 years ago that addressed homophobia. So, I thought about what homophobia really was, and it’s a type of fear. I’ve always loved horror movies, and at their core they are an exploration of fear. It doesn’t matter what kind of horror movie you’re thinking of. Whether it’s supernatural or it’s a slasher film. Fear is the theme, and it’s a living state. So, it made sense to merge those two things together. Also, when I was a teenager going through the experience these teenagers were going through in my film, I turned to horror movies, and I think a lot of queer people did because they explored these themes of otherness and identity. Sometimes metaphorically, sometimes quite directly. But often, just this as a story model allows filmmakers and writers to express what may be a bit taboo through the characters and the metaphors that were there.
Nick: The setting of the film being in a remote Australian town comes with its own preconceived notions. And then the addition of making it a religious community then adds another layer of substance to the antagonistic elements of the story. I’m curious to know how early in the process you landed on the film’s setting, and whether you feel the story would be different had it not been in this remote, religious town?
AC: Yeah, I wanted the film to be set in a lonely place. I think the idea of isolation as one of the themes was there, and that was important to me. You know, in researching where a lot of these Pentecostal communities were was important too. While there are a lot of them in the suburbs and cities, there are a lot in regional parts of Australia as well. I also wanted Joe and Mia’s characters to be this family that have moved to a new place in the wake of tragedy, and to not have them reveal too much of what they’ve been through. It felt organic for them to go somewhere a little more remote, than to move somewhere more populated.
Nick: I want to talk about the two types of physicality in the film. The first is these adolescent boys, who are working through emotions and identity, and the physical manifestation of that exploration is this primal wrestling they do. And then we have the actual physicality of the violence of the entity itself. I’m curious to know what your process was of exploring the story through these different types of physicality.
AC: Yeah, it’s an interesting question. I thought about it a lot when I was writing, and also when we were doing rehearsals with the actors. It’s like this idea of performative masculinity amongst young men, and this performative violence really plays into how these characters are the most vulnerable to the entity, to our monster. Because if violence played some part in their desire, then as soon as the monster got a bit violent, they wouldn’t see it coming. That is terrifying to me, and really scary, and really confronting. There was a lot to explore in that. And I know that in rehearsal, the guys did a lot to explore that performative aggression. There was a lot of screaming and swearing at each other. Very safely throwing soft objects at each other. And they’re doing this so loudly that all these people from the neighbouring buildings were coming out going, “What the hell is going on?” And it’s funny because the film has a lot of swearing, but the script actually didn’t have that much. That all sort of emerged from the work the guys did.
Nick: While we’re talking about Joe and Stacey, I’d love to ask about how you navigated the “duality” of their roles, and what the process of finding the nuances in that duality was like?
AC: Yeah, it was particularly important for Stacey, because he played both Ryan and this version of the entity. So, with Stacey we had all of these conversations about what the entity would like, and how he would move. What would his presence be? I had this idea of looking at big cat predators. And the thing about those animals is that when they hunt in the wild, they actually don’t have a lot of stamina, so they can’t outrun their prey. They’ve got to get in a really tight proximity, and then they pounce. The chase is short and sharp. So, I said to Stacey that he has to think of the entity as this thing that doesn’t run, but rather it lures the victims closer. And that’s why it has to appear as the person the character desires most. Then with our intimacy coordinator, Amy Cater, who did a lot more than just stage the sex scenes, she actually looked into all of this dramaturgical stuff with the actors as well. We started exploring the physicality and walk of the entity with her. The other thing Stacey did that I don’t think many people have noticed is that he was wearing contact lenses as the monster. It’s super subtle, but I think that impacted his performance as well because any actor who has worn them will tell you they are pretty discombobulating.
Nick: That’s definitely something to look for on the rewatch! When I was reading through your statement while preparing questions for this chat, I loved how you spoke about your fascination and appreciation of the Bible and the storytelling that is within it. I’m not religious anymore, but I feel the exact same way. I kind of respect how great some of the stories in the Bible are. What was your journey with discovering creativity, and what were those moments, like with the Bible, where you started to understand the fundamentals of storytelling?
AC: It’s so funny you said that. My parents were firm atheists. They never believed in anything spiritual. But, I went to a religious all-boys school – which is probably what started a lot of the homophobic trauma [laughs]. But, I remember one year I won the Religious Divinity Class prize at speech night, and my Mum was so concerned! And I was just like, “I like the stories”! I think the filmmaker in me was there when I was reading about these very visceral, mythological stories, and these archetypes of characters going through these extreme situations. The way you had these parables – these little stories with such a clear theme that was being explored so simply and quickly. I think there was a part of me that really saw that. I grew up watching a lot of films. My parents aren’t filmmakers, but they did expose me to a lot of films from around the world just because culturally they are from different parts of the world. My mum is Chinese, so she watched a lot of movies from Chinese-speaking countries. And my dad is Italian, but he also speaks a lot of different European languages, like Spanish and French. So, he was always watching a lot of European films. We weren’t a filmmaker family, but through the VCR, we had a lot of movies playing all the time from different parts of the world.
Nick: That’s incredible! And even more so because they were able to source so many different international films on VHS!
AC: And SBS as well!
Nick: Being a horror film, I’m intrigued to know how you decide what horror elements you’re choosing to go for in your film. When I was watching the film, my friend who I was next to was so affected by some of the violence and more grotesque elements. Whereas I am affected by the dread and psychological elements. When you’re writing, are you creating things that are just scary to you, or things you know audiences will react to even if you don’t find them scary?
AC: Oh, that is really interesting. It has to start with what I find scary myself. Sometimes, that’s something really gruesome and gory. Sometimes it’s as you say – a feeling. Some things aren’t even scary until we put sounds to it, and that was a really big part of developing the horror too. You just don’t know if something is going to work until you’re in that final stage. And even then, you don’t know if it’ll work for an audience. When we played the film at Sundance for the first time, it was so nerve-wracking. I wish there was a science to it, but there just isn’t. It’s like comedy – I wish there was a science to making things funny, but you just have to try and test things out and gain the experience from doing so.
Thank you so much to Adrian for his time, and to Maslow Entertainment and NixCo PR for organising the interview. Leviticus is in Australian cinemas June 18.
