What Josiah Saw is a 2021 Southern Gothic Psychological Horror Drama directed by Vincent Grashaw and starring Robert Patrick, Nick Stahl, Scott Haze, and Kelli Garner, with minor roles played by Jake Weber and Tony Hale.
Siblings Thomas (Haze), Eli (Stahl), and Mary Graham (Garner) were put through hell growing up to say the least, with Eli and Mary leaving their family home the moment they can. Thomas stays at their remote farmhouse where he continues to endure their father Josiah (Patrick), an unpleasant man whose unpleasantness cannot be overstated.
One day, an oil company offers to buy the farmhouse and the land its on to drill for oil, which leads the three back to their old home, where dark secrets and old sins begin flooding back to the surface.
What the film lacks in traditional jump scares and heart-pounding Gorn, it makes up for in its harrowing slowburn tension, unflinching exploration of generational trauma, and some of the most unpleasant Squick in recent memory.
Seriously, You Have Been Warned.
This film provides examples of:
- Abusive Dad: Josiah. He beats and degrades Thomas to the point he hallucinates seeing him even in the present and cements himself even further as an irredeemable monster when it's later revealed he impregnated his own daughter.
- Asshole Victim: Josiah arguably deserved a worse death.
- Ax-Crazy: Thomas ends up becoming this due to years of trauma. By the end of the movie, he's killed both of his siblings and refuses to believe they succeeded in killing their father years ago. Not to mention the fact that he has a restraining order against him.
- Bait-and-Switch: A
very fucked-up example. Thomas compliments Mary's attractive looks so often and with such a lustful-sounding voice, it's almost implied he's attracted to his own sister. Turns out he's the only man in the house who hasn't committed incest with her. - Big Bad: Josiah. Or, in truth, the hallucination of him Thomas has.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Thomas repeatedly compliments Mary's good looks in an almost lustful tone, and possibly in defense after being confronted with the realization that Josiah has been dead this whole time, he accuses Eli and Mary of committing incest due to the baby she once had. This leads to an insane Double Subversion as the baby was Mary's and Josiah's, but she and Eli did in fact commit incest upon reuniting at the motel before meeting up with Thomas.
- Cain and Abel: Thomas kills Mary and Eli after snapping due to The Reveal that he's been hallucinating Josiah's presence this whole time.
- Chekhov's Gun: Eli's prized uncut cocaine. It helps him escape the Romani gang.
- Chekhov's Gunman: That little boy that Thomas says hello to but is quickly shunned away from? That's his estranged son, Tanner.
- Child by Rape: Mary had one with her father, but it died. They discover its skeleton in a trunk in the farmhouse.
- Dead All Along: Josiah was killed 20 years before the events of the movie after impregnating Mary. Thomas has been hallucinating him this whole time.
- Domestic Abuse: Josiah didn't treat his wife any better than his children. This eventually lead to her suicide.
- Downer Ending: Thomas murders both of his siblings and remains isolated in his childhood home with nothing more than the hallucination of his deceased father. Though as the final shot of the movie implies, even Eli and Mary were too far gone to return to a normal life.
- Driven to Suicide: Mrs. Graham hung herself in the family garden in front of Thomas. We don't learn why until much later.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Boone dies very suddenly right after handing over gold to Eli as payment for the heist.
- The Ending Changes Everything: Somehow Josiah looks even worse on a rewatch once you go in knowing that he's been dead this whole time, yet Thomas' trauma is so ingrained, that he still plays a part in his life to this day. And that's not even getting into what he did to Mary and what became of it.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Thomas is shown optimistically attempting to repair a tractor on his farm and failing. He's later shown praying over his breakfast while at the table with his father, freezing up and frowning as soon as his father insults his faith.
- Eli is first introduced having sex with a woman in a dingy mobile home out in the middle of nowhere for drugs. Moments later, a cop approaches the trailer accusing him of kidnapping a little girl due to his previous criminal record and reports of him resorting to drugs and gambling.
- Mary is nowhere near rural Texas, instead living in a suburban neighborhood with her husband. They go to a clinic in the hopes of undoing a tubal ligation she's had for 20 years in the hopes of having a child, though she seriously doubts having a child will improve her life.
- Fan Disservice: Mary is a very attractive woman who we eventually get to see nude. Too bad it's when she's having sex with her own brother, and this is the final scene in the movie.
- Femme Fatale: Gina, the attractive Romani woman who convinces Eli to have his palms read.
- Foreshadowing:
- Thomas greets a little boy named Tanner in a grocery store, and the boy's mother angrily pulls him away from Thomas. Tanner is his son, and the angry mother is Thomas' wife who filed a restraining order against him.
- Josiah forcing Thomas to masturbate in front of him turns out to only be the tip of the amount of sexual abuse he's inflicted upon his children.
- Billy takes note of several sights and sounds that Romani consider bad luck, such as crows and lightning without rain, just before the heist. Eli is the only one who survives the heist.
- Mary has had her tubes tied for 20 years and wishes to undo the ligation so she and her husband Ross can have a child. However, she has so little faith in the idea of her being a good mother, she snaps at a friend just for telling her she'd be a wonderful mother. She had her tubes tied because her father impregnated her, and she doubts in her abilities as a mother because their child died for unknown reasons, possibly murdered by Josiah.
- Greater-Scope Villain: With The Reveal that Josiah has been Dead All Along, renders the real Josiah this, as the abuse he inflicted on his children left scars that lasted long after his death.
- Hidden Depths: Billy seems like your typical Book Dumb thug until he reveals himself to be quite knowledgeable in Romani folklore, specifically sights and occurrences they consider bad omens.
- Hope Spot:
- Eli not only survives the heist but manages to rescue the missing little girl, who had been held captive by the Romani. He appears to be on his way to redemption until he has sex with his sister.
- Ross calls Mary to let her know the undoing of her tubal ligation is a success, and they can have a baby soon. Returning to her childhood home ensures that will never happen, and considering what she and Eli do upon reuniting, even that might've only been one of many obstacles in the way.
- Jerkass: Josiah is a vile, abusive man who treated his family awfully. He tormented his wife to such an extent she committed suicide, and viciously beat his children.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Why Boone unceremoniously dies the moment he touches the gypsy gold. Some theorize the Romani had cursed it. Others believe it contained arsenic or some other hazardous material. It is never stated which is which.
- Parental Incest: Hoo boy. Josiah forces Thomas to masturbate in front of him and impregnated Mary in the past, leading to her getting her tubes tied, their mother committing suicide, and the three siblings teaming up to murder him.
- Rape as Drama: It turns out Josiah molested and impregnated Mary, which drove Mrs. Graham to suicide.
- Rape Discretion Shot: One of the most haunting shots in the movie is a five-second shot of Josiah smiling at a young Mary and reaching her hands out to him.
- The Reveal: A whole series of them in the last twenty minutes of the movie, each one worst than the last:
- Josiah was Dead All Along, having been killed by his own children over 20 years ago.
- Mrs. Graham committed suicide because Josiah impregnated Mary, which is also why Mary had her tubes tied.
- Eli and Mary had sex with each other at the motel before reuniting with Thomas.
- Self-Made Orphan: The Graham siblings actually killed Josiah years ago and buried his body out in the yard before going separate ways.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: The siblings' reunion at the farmhouse leads to Tommy completely losing it, causing him to kill both Eli and Mary, leaving him alone with the hallucination of their Abusive Dad. Though the final scene heavily implies that even surviving wouldn't have been enough to allow them to recover, as the first thing Eli and Mary did upon reuniting at the motel is have sex.
- Southern Gothic: The movie revolves around a Southern Texas family plagued by years of trauma inflicted upon them at their isolated farmhouse in the rural countryside.
- Wham Shot: The movie ends on an insanely squicky one: a Flash Back confirming that Mary and Eli did indeed commit incest after reuniting at the motel.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Hooray! Eli survived the heist, Mary is gonna have a baby, and Thomas has reconnected with his father. And now they're on their way to reunite! Oh, Crap! There's still 20 minutes left...
