‘Leviticus:’ Fear and self-loathing in must-see queer horror-romance

 

Sundance hit “Leviticus” chills with queer horror love story as “Supergirl” stumbles and “Minions & Monsters” steal the spotlight this film season.

We’re glad we rushed to a screening of Adrian Chiarella’s “Leviticus” when it opened exclusively at SM Cinemas last Wednesday. The queer horror-romance, which debuted to critical acclaim at Sundance early this year, is guaranteed to give horror aficionados the heebie-jeebies with a haunting teenage love story that terrorizes as much as it exhilarates.

The current film season has consistently been fielding one exceptional horror film after another, from Sam Raimi’s campy thriller “Send Help” to Curry Barker’s psychological drama “Obsession.” Joining them on the must-see list is Chiarella’s cleverly realized take on the horrors of conversion therapy and religious fanaticism.

In the movie, guarded transferee student Naim Reed (Joe Bird) is shaken out of his grief when he relocates to a deeply religious Australian town with his conservative mother and starts a secret romance with his charismatic but closeted classmate, Ryan Whelan (Stacy Clausen). When Naim sees Ryan kissing the pastor’s son, Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt), he outs them to their parents out of spite. 

Things take a turn for the twisted after a “deliverance healer” is called in to purge the boys of their lust and homosexual impulses. Thereafter, Naim, Ryan and Hunter encounter a sinister entity whose idea of cleansing isn’t just a cautionary slap on the derrière. It stalks them wherever they go while taking the form of the person they’re most attracted to. But how do you avoid someone you can hardly resist?  

Boosted by complementary performances that are uniformly effective and genuinely affecting, the film trusts enough in its unique setting to forgo a descent into gimmicky jump scares and formulaic storytelling. 

As a result, the narrative progression feels more like a natural crescendo of chills and thrills than an onslaught of overwrought effects. Ryan and Naim’s love story is another stark reminder of what it means to love freely—and bravely—in an unwelcoming and intolerant environment.

‘What haffen, Kara?’ 

Last week, we expected Supergirl to fly into the Philippine movie screens with total main character energy, but her relevance and relatability were easily eclipsed by a nun going through a crisis of faith (“First Light,” starring the sublime Ruby Ruiz), a drag queen holding a grudge against her estranged homophobic billionaire dad (“Drags to Riches,” with the prodigious Christian Bables in a dual role) and, this week, by gibberish-speaking creatures whose core purpose in life is to serve the most despicable villains on the planet (“Minions & Monsters”). To borrow social media sensation Cristopher Diwata’s trendsetting line, “What haffen, Kara?”

On paper, the story is compelling enough—about how Kal-El’s cousin Kara Zor-El (the appropriately cast Milly Alcock) raises against time in search of an antidote that would neutralize the poison in superdog Krypto’s body—but the film chooses to overcomplicate the movie with situations and places in far-off outer space that should have been left untold and unseen. So much about how the story plays out gives viewers the ick.

Thinking that “Supergirl” could replicate James Gunn’s box-office and critical success with “Guardians of the Galaxy,” DC Studios’ eagerly awaited film (54% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) fell victim instead to the same elements that contributed to the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s winning streak in the aftermath of “Avengers: Endgame”—from bloated and increasingly confounding multiverse stories to superhero fatigue.

These delulu movie studios should drag their superheroes back to Earth, where their adventures can be better appreciated by viewers, not by dead stars and blackholes! 

Method to Minions’ madness

“Minions & Monsters,” the laugh-out-loud seventh title in the “Despicable Me” franchise, also began its theatrical run this week. 

They may be tiny, yellow and ancient, but Gru’s snickering pill-shaped henchmen can teach humans a lesson or two about resilience, teamwork and a glass-half-full mindset every time life knocks you down. The instant downside of course is their inability to question their mean masters’ notions of right and wrong.

These rambunctious banana-obsessed creatures, featuring James and Henry in the spotlight, are getting the best reviews (89% on Rotten Tomatoes as we write this) of their celluloid career—with good reason. 

The film revisits the Minions’ madcap adventures in the Roaring ‘20s just before talkies began exceeding the popularity of silent films in Hollywood. The Minions’ marching order requires them to look for frightening creatures they can unleash in the monster movie they’re making.

To reflect the ever-evolving world order, writer-director Pierre Coffin places the story 41 years before the events in 2015’s “Minions,” at a time when filmmaking and society in general were going through a lot of changes. As it turns out, the world continues to unravel to this day—for better or for worse.

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