Direction: Vincent Grashaw
Country: USA
Supported by actors always close to their characters, What Josiah Saw casts some obscurity in the first instance, gradually clearing the blurriness as we move into the revelatory and extremely disturbing third chapter. Director Vincent Grashaw conducts this Southern gothic procession with strong dramatic power and ominous tones, giving the best sequence to a tragic story written by Robert Alan Dilts. It’s a nightmarish journey of no return to hell, where the human center still holds for quite some time. Yet, the hope once insinuated soon goes up in flames.
The film reveals the paths of three shattered siblings - Thomas (Scott Haze), Eli (Nick Stahl) and Mary (Kelli Garner) - immediately before they reunite in the remote farmhouse where they grew up. Robert Patrick (the T-1000 of Terminator 2: Judgment Day), who plays their alcoholic father, Josiah, is remarkably good, and the eerie score by Robert Pycior empowers the desired slow-burning tension throughout. Here, family values are plowed under by greedy oil corporations but also by dark secrets, madness, and enduring suffering.
Tackling a few topics in need of renewal, Grashaw deserves to be saluted for handling a challenging structure with a firm hand while progressively escalating the tension. There’s absolutely nothing charming or pleasant in this bleak slow-burner, and what remains is both shocking and creepy-crawly enough to make us remember it.
