Josiah Graham (Robert Patrick) lives with his adult son, Tommy (Scott Haze), on the old family farm.  Some twenty years prior, the matriarch of the family, Miriam (Pamela Bell) hung herself from a large tree in the yard, and the tragedy rocked the family to its core.  Eli (Nick Stahl) and Mary (Kelli Garner) both fled from home to escape the memory of the place, but when a new oil company offers a handsome price to buy up the land, the two return to their childhood home and must face the fallout of the unresolved traumas they endured as youth. 

Vincent Grashaw directs What Josiah Saw, a layered horror story written by Robert Alan Dilts that fits into Grashaw’s wheelhouse of stories about abuse of power and which he has built a career examining. It is the largest of his three films both in runtime, clocking in at an even two hours, but also scope. The narrative follows the Graham children, now grown, as they try to rebuild a life for themselves that has been shattered by trauma and tragedy. Dilts’ script also weaves in elements of the supernatural which finds Grashaw broaching new territory with his filmmaking and introduces some more traditional horror genre elements into the work of a director that until now has mostly kept to working in realism. 

What Josiah Saw opens with introductions to Josiah and Tommy. In his dreams, Josiah was visited by the spirit of Miriam, and she told him that she is trapped in hellfire and that Josiah and the family must repent for their sins. Enacting his power over his son, we quickly learn that Josiah is incredibly abusive and his behavior is only amplified through his alcoholism. This first act is pretty standard fare in laying the groundwork for what comes next, but it is still very effective storytelling as Dilts allows the mystery to sink its teeth into us and leave us longing for answers.  

In the second chapter, we follow Eli as he roves about the dusty Texas landscape in search of sex and drugs while trying – and mostly failing – to avoid trouble. When a young girl goes missing, the police have Eli marked as suspect number one given a past history of statutory claims made against him. This second story mostly exists in a vacuum and takes some wild turns, but it is still incredibly engaging. In an effort to clear his record and start fresh, Eli is brought on by Boone (Jake Weber) to infiltrate a gypsy camp with some of his goons and be a distraction while they steal the fabled gold. This middle section is the longest segment of the film and is largely divorced from the story that was started back on the farm until Eli has his fortune told by Mama Luna (Louanne Stephens) as part of his distraction. She begins saying things eerily similar to what Josiah described in his dreams – Eli’s mother is burning, and she blames the children. Despite this connection, where the narrative is headed and why we spent so much time with Eli and the gypsies is unclear, but Grashaw and Dilts are still delivering an entertaining arc so that this detour does not try the patience of audiences, but just enhances the mystery. 

The third chapter follows Mary and of the three chapters, it is the roughest starting point, but it finds its footing quickly enough. Mary and her husband, Ross (Tony Hale), are trying for a baby, but Ross is quickly growing tired of Mary’s anxiety from her childhood and finds that her coping mechanisms are more destructive to living a “normal” life than anything. Thematically, it is in line with the film’s exploration of the abuse of power and narratively it makes sense to visit the third Graham child and see where life took them, so it does not feel totally out of place in the larger picture. The ideas in Mary’s chapter suffer as they are not given the room they need to breathe and expand as the film begins its rush to the finish line. While the middle act feels the most like its own contained short film, the themes at work in Mary’s story are the ones that feel most akin to Grashaw’s previous efforts, and a little more time spent on expanding Mary’s world would have greatly helped this last piece before the explosive conclusion.  

After a tense dinner party, the following day Eli arrives, and the siblings make the difficult decision to return home. The narrative begins to close the loop on itself in an incredibly satisfying series of reveals as the truth of the past is slowly brought to light. It is a twisted conclusion to the story, but it shows how through guilt and trauma, we all make up small variations of the truth as a way to cope with the events that transpired and shaped our lives. When the four takes violently intersect, What Josiah Saw becomes brutally visceral, yet not quite cathartic. The finale leans more into genre than drama, but it is not a total tonal shift as all the imagery which was teased in the earlier segments comes to fruition here in the final moments. It moves at breakneck speed, however, and careful attention needs to be given to the film as the dust begins to settle on what actually happened twenty-three years prior, and what the family does now that the truth is out.  

What Josiah Saw is a strange film that works remarkably well given how much time is spent away from the farm and therefore Josiah, too. Grashaw adds another strong effort to his growing filmography, and while his horror conventions are not bringing much new to the table, there is a fierce tension that he continues to imbue his films with that makes them addictively engaging despite the tragedies that are unfolding on screen. Coldwater (2013) and And Then I Go (2017) can be seen as straight thrillers, but they have a bit stronger messaging than what is contained here, though What Josiah Saw is not just mindless genre entertainment, either. It can certainly be read as such, the permeation of trauma and toxic masculinity courses through this work, as well, and while it takes on what can be seen as an understandably frustrating structure for some, the narrative pull of the mystery laid out by Dilts is quite strong and it will reward those who stay locked into the film until the end.