'Leviticus' review: A horror film about 'conversion therapy' that gets it all wrong

There’s no hostility like the Hollywood kind. When it targets you, it forms a gargoyle with your name on it, then produces a film about you, the gargoyle, releases it to the masses, and voila! Thousands who’ve never met you now believe the gargoyle they saw in the movie is you and, worse yet, you are it.

Just ask any of the groups aligned with Christianity who’ve been cinematically targeted. Fundamentalists got this treatment in 1960’s "Inherit the Wind," the same year Charismatics got it from "Elmer Gantry." Catholic nuns got it in "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All to You" (2001); healing ministries in "Leap of Faith" (1992); pro-lifers in "Citizen Ruth" (1996); and homeschoolers in "Movie 43" (2013).

In each case, the targeted group is portrayed not as they are, but as fun-house mirror images showing only some of the authentic. The rest of what audiences see is a distortion posing as a reflection.

"Leviticus," released this past weekend by Australian director Adrian Chiarella, joins Hollywood’s distortions of another targeted group: counselors, ministers, or just about anyone helping someone else deal with unwanted homosexuality (AKA the dreaded “conversion therapists”). Prior examples include 2018’s "Boy Erased," a lurid misrepresentation of a ministry that actually existed; "But I’m a Cheerleader" (1999), a hopelessly silly story of a camp where teens don Adam and Eve outfits to experience heterosexual feelings; and slanted documentaries like "One Nation Under God" (1993) and "Pray Away" (2021).

But Chiarella offers a new approach by making an argument against conversion therapy through a horror story, and the result is a hybrid of "The Exorcist," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and Michael Jackson’s "Thriller" video. What makes this new movie significant, though, is not the film itself, but what it indicates. The national conversation about conversion therapy must have reached a new level because a horror movie about the subject can now be released, and audiences seem to know what it is without it being referred to by name even once throughout the entire film.

The story centers on Naim and Ryan, two adolescent boys in an Australian town who are beginning a sexual relationship. They keep both the relationship and their homosexuality from their parents, since the town is conservative and, it’s suggested, quite backward.

But the parents do find out, and the true horror begins. They happen to be Christians belonging to a cult-like congregation, and they feel it their duty to subject the boys to an exorcism-like ritual performed in front of the entire congregation.

The presiding minister, identified only as Deliverance Preacher, begins the process by uttering such trite mumbo jumbo that both boys have to stifle their giggles. Upon finishing, he announces that henceforth two flames will control them — one burning their lust away, and the other replacing it with natural desire. Suddenly, Naim and Ryan convulse, double over in agony, scream, and contort. This concludes the conversion therapy session.

Or does it?

Despite the Deliverance Preacher’s assurances, Naim and Ryan remain sexually attracted to each other, but with a lethal hitch: an Entity starts appearing to both of them, looking just like Naim to Ryan and just like Ryan to Naim. It presents itself as a lover, then turns murderously violent, and the rest of the movie follows the boys as they try to fight the Entity brought upon them by their church while fighting for the relationship they’re unwilling to give up.

The takeaway is clear: Parents, churches, and ministers who don’t affirm homosexuality do horrific damage; conversion therapy is destructive; and gay kids who fight for their authentic selves are heroic. Love wins.

"Leviticus" will be of interest to people who follow the conversion therapy controversy, including woke activists and concerned Christians. But horror movie fans looking for good scares are sure to be disappointed. The suspense is minimal, the jump scares predictable, and the ending comes with a thud rather than a bang.

As someone branded with the “conversion therapist” label, who also benefited from the counseling services this film misrepresents, I came to the theater with keen interest in what the movie wanted to say and who might be swayed by it.

Let’s start with the title, an obvious reference to well-known prohibitions against homosexuality found in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. Chiarella, who also wrote the screenplay, doesn’t mention these verses, or any biblical references to homosexuality, in his script. Nor does anyone utter the phrase “conversion therapy.”

No matter, the point is made. The monsters in the story — ignorant parents, weird ministers, gay-bashing bullies — were birthed by an Ultimate Foe: the Bible itself. If only that ancient but still influential book didn’t exist, or if it had left the topic of God’s intention for human sexuality alone, none of these atrocities would happen. Or so the film implies.

But the Bible did happen, producing the belief that we have a Maker who designed us male and female for a reason. That, in turn, produced the belief that homosexuality, like other sexual behaviors deviating from His design, should be turned away from.

It’s that belief, rather than ignorance or phobias, that has caused thousands (myself included) to reject homosexual relations, live in harmony with God’s will as revealed in Scripture, and pursue whatever potential may exist for marriage. Mine has lasted 39 years now, and far from producing monsters and mayhem, it has resulted in a family, grown sons, and a life richer than I ever thought possible.

I deserved the option of pursuing that life and, as a biblical counselor for the past four decades, the choice to help others who are likewise pursuing it. That’s why the sermon, indirectly but creatively preached in "Leviticus," needs to be challenged.

Chiarella claims to have based the deliverance ritual in his film on information he gathered by researching “conversion therapy” ministries worldwide. Well, maybe he visited some obscure tribal witch doctor in unnamed territories, but he certainly didn’t visit my office.

Had he done so, he’d have learned that those of us in this field of ministry are a boring lot. We just talk. We counsel and coach people who share our worldview, offering them biblical principles and practices to help them achieve their goals of abstaining from homosexual behavior, sustaining their marriages, improving their relationships, and growing in Christ.

None of us calls ourselves conversion therapists, a term imposed on us against our will, and few of our clients are teens. Most are adults who have made a conscious choice they have every right to make, and our response to them is light-years away from the nonsense portrayed in films like this.

None of which keeps movies like "Leviticus" from being made or stops people who want to believe the wild claims made about our work.

But Christians should consider the broader question here: If American culture becomes convinced that biblical teaching on homosexuality is destructive, and that those who promote it must be stopped, what’s to stop that culture from prohibiting any other biblical teaching it finds offensive?

Say, for example, the Gospel itself?

Now that would make an authentic horror story.