YMMV / What Josiah Saw

• Complete Monster: Josiah Graham was a twisted, abusive family patriarch who subjected his children to beatings and torture. Josiah was also an abusive pedophile who regularly raped his daughter Mary and fathered a child with her that soon died. So horrific was his abuse that his eldest son Thomas is unable to let go of Josiah haunting him even decades hence.
• Fanfic Fuel: Eli's storyline is widely considered the most interesting of the three siblings, and many fans and viewers like to imagine the events that led to him being in debt with Boone and in trouble with the law.
• Moral Event Horizon: Where does one even begin with Josiah? In just the first twenty minutes of the movie, Josiah goes from berating his son Thomas to slapping him to forcing him to masturbate in front of him as punishment. But even that doesn't hold a candle to his worst crime, the one that drove his wife to suicide and broke every single one of the kids: the rape and impregnation of Mary.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Considering the amount of rape and incest tropes are featured on the main page, it's not a surprise that one of the movie's biggest criticisms is just how hopeless and unpleasant it is, to the point it almost starts coming off as shock value than anything else.
• The Woobie:
  • Thomas, oh dear lord Thomas. Not only does the guy have have to deal with the ghost of his horribly abusive dad he’s also not allowed to see his own son and he’s left haunted by his mother’s suicide. If the scene with his childhood self sitting next to her hanging body doesn’t pull at your heartstrings it's because you don’t have one! Small wonder the poor thing completely loses it in the end!
  • Mary somehow has it even worse. Every single male in her life has lusted after her, all but one of whom are related to her. Her own father had his way with her, and the final scene shows even her own brother Eli, though the only somewhat good thing about the latter is that at least her tryst with Eli appears to be consensual.

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