Review-- 'It Follows' and 'Leviticus'

Two vastly different films
with similar conceits

Horror has many different variations. From the gore-filled slashers like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the Saw films, to suspenseful cinema experiences like Sinister and Insidious.

I have a soft spot for the latter category. I enjoy the slow-burn nature of films and novels that don’t drop you into the horror, but rather worm their way into your brain and imagination. While the slashers, gore-fests, and violent spectacles have their place, the films I remember the most are slow-burns.

Both It Follows and Leviticus fall into this niche.

The films share a few common elements. Both have young protagonists in their teens, and both are coming of age stories. In each of them, the strange occurrences that begin to envelope the main characters can’t be directly seen by others, even if they are experienced by their friends.

However, this point is where they diverge. While It Follows’ Jay has a cadre of friends united in protecting her, the main character in Leviticus, Naim, is a somewhat alienated protagonist with very few friends.

In It Follows, Jay has unprotected sex with her new, older boyfriend, and is then drugged. Upon awaking in a wheelchair, he explains to her that she’s going to see something coming after her, and that she must get away from it or be murdered. He then disappears after dumping her on the lawn of her house.

It turns out that the demonic force, or whatever it is, functions like a sexually transmitted infection, and can be passed from one person to another. But, once It, for lack of a better descriptor, kills a person, it immediately goes to the previous infected member of the chain. In essence, it is a phenomenon you can’t be rid of, but only delay.

To its credit, It Follows never attempts to explain the infection or the force that follows Jay and anyone she has sex with. It just is. The story would have been far less unsettling if the boogeyman had been rationally, logically dissected. Sometimes, it’s better not knowing.

Leviticus shares some of the same facets. In this film, Naim is ensconced in a religious school and his mother’s church. He is new in town, his mother having moved them for some unknown reason, and has no friends. But as the film opens after the titles, we discover the gawky, somewhat awkward Naim striking up a friendship with a good-looking, well-built young man named Ryan. The pair ultimately share an intimate moment, informing the audience that both of them are gay. This fact is extremely important and the rest of the film hinges upon it.

When Ryan is “outed” to his parents and the community, the church brings in a sort of exorcist who passes judgment upon him. The process causes a change in Ryan, but that change is difficult to discern. At first.

As the film continues, it becomes clear that something is not only following Ryan and threatening him, but it also looks like Naim. And when Naim is outed and subjected to the same “therapy,” he becomes haunted by something that looks like Ryan. In other words, the young men desire one another, and the thing trying to destroy them appears as a doppelganger of their beloved.

It’s rather easy to see that Leviticus is a social commentary on so-called “conversion therapy” and the damage it can do to young LGBTQ men and women, but the film itself doesn’t dwell on the theme. Instead, it moves on to showing us Naim’s and Ryan’s struggles to stay away from one another while still loving one another. Ultimately, though, any attempts to stay their doppelgangers are futile.

The two films are obviously metaphors: one for AIDS and the other conversion therapy. Their plots are different, and yet, they feel quite similar to me, and not in a bad way. While It Follows has moments of terror, Leviticus spends most of its time focused on the psychological difficulties the two lovers face from both societal rejection and the curse that’s been laid upon them.

Neither of these movies are going to win the scariest film award, but the unreality that follows the characters makes you wonder if the person you love, or if that stranger on the street, is some kind of demon waiting to pounce upon you and end your life. I think the uncanny valley they both provide is what makes the two films memorable long after the credits have rolled across the screen.

At the time of this writing, Leviticus and It Follows are available to stream on Hulu and Amazon respectively.