Like many a queer kid, Adrian Chiarella grew up watching scary movies and identifying with them. Now, he has written and directed his own horror feature.
His made-in-Australia film “Leviticus” opens around the country this week. It’s about the romance between teenagers Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) in a conservative small town. A religious rite that’s meant to heal them instead creates a deadly entity that takes the shape of who its victim desires the most. For Naim and Ryan, it’s each other.
Chiarella recently spoke to Georgia Voice about the project.
Prior to “Leviticus,” the director noticed a peeling back of some of the rights that the LGBTQ+ community had spent the last decade or so fighting for.
“I grew up in a time where, as a gay man, I saw all this amazing progress built to this point where I was able to marry my husband in Australia,” he said. “But then something kind of shifted, and I wanted to explore that as a filmmaker.”
He also started to think about the horror films that he loved as a kid, and realized he wasn’t alone. He wanted to explore why that is.
“I started to think about why we turn to stories of teenagers being chased by monsters and I started coming up with ideas of homophobia, which is a kind of fear, and I came up with this entity, this horror movie monster that takes the form of the person you’re most attracted to,” Chiarella said. “It felt like the right metaphor to explore these ideas.”
One of Chiarella’s favorite movies is John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” and he also loves the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise.
“There was something about the blurring of the self and other that I found terrifying,” he said. “The idea of bringing that into a queer love story was interesting to me.”
Once he had the horror movie concept, the other half of the project that appealed to him was the love story.
“I wanted to explore what these feelings meant for the first time as a teenager,” Chiarella said. “But I also really loved the idea of telling a story where feelings of desire and jealousy mingle into a horror movie. Before I could get into that, I needed the audience to feel the connection between these two characters.”
Bird, 19, also appeared in the 2022 horror film “Talk to Me.” Chiarella said he was a natural presence onscreen.
“He is not afraid to bring so much of himself,” Chiarella said. “He has a great sense of who he is, and he lets that out when he is doing anything. For an actor of his age to have that confidence and awareness and wisdom behind his eyes – it was undeniable when he was auditioning he was going to be the guy carrying the film.”
But still, casting such a young actor was a scary choice. Chiarella made the choice not to cast a 30-year-old and tried to convince the audience that they were a teenager. Instead, he chose a young actor and asked him to be present every day and carry significant emotional and physical weight. Luckily, it worked.
“I found a great creative partner with Joe,” Chiarella said. “I am excited for what happens next for him.”
Chiarella premiered the film at the Sundance Film Festival’s midnight section, which is dedicated to horror films, earlier this year. The screening was successful, and Neon picked up the film soon after.
“We only finished the film a few days before I got on the plane. No one had seen it,” Chiarella said. “I think the reason [Sundance’s] Midnight section is so popular is the audiences are so enthusiastic about the genre, very vocal and loud.”
It’s a particularly strong moment for horror at the box office now, with the successes of “Backrooms” and “Obsession.” Chiarella feels audiences want to leave their house to see the genre and share the experience with fellow filmgoers.
“I think it is a wonderful time for horror,” he said. “It’s a genre that is great for young filmmakers. You don’t need a big budget or stars. It allows your voice and your experimentation in different ways.”
Looking back to his days being scared on the sofa, Chiarella said he thinks he knows why gay audiences love horror films.
“There is something about the themes of otherness and being an outsider that respond to our experience. While non-queer people turn to a traditional coming of age story to see that journey of self-discovery presented in a positive affirming way, some of us turn to another type of coming-of-age story, usually about teenagers having sex, being damned by it and being chased by monsters,” he said. “It’s someone we can all relate to. I’ve been saying it a lot – you can’t deny that a lot of extraordinary queer artists and storytellers throughout history have shaped the genre. They lived in a time where they could not express their experience and had to find the best genre that had to be a metaphor.”
“Leviticus” opens in theaters this weekend.
