Grim, bleak, and displaying a predominantly muddy coloration palate—all greens, greys, browns—in addition to a nervous breakdown of a rating by Robert Pycior, Vincent Grashaw’s “What Josiah Saw” is a tricky watch. It is usually terrifying (Pycior’s rating gave me a couple of jolts), and provocative, happening within the thick of a household dynamic so sick and twisted there is no manner out. The entire doorways are simply black squares, main nowhere. The movie options daring gritty performances from Robert Patrick, Nick Stahl, Scott Haze, and Kelli Garner—taking part in the members of the fractured Graham household, haunted (actually) by the previous, and likewise trapped by it. “What Josiah Saw” unfolds at a stately tempo, with scenes dragging out (the fortune teller alternate is an apparent instance), the run-time lengthened unnecessarily. The household trauma is so clotted-thick, that a quicker tempo and tightened-up enhancement may need to eradicate the slow-motion underwater really feel of the entire.
The remoted Graham household farm lies on the outskirts of a forgotten Texas city, and the one inhabitants left are drunken patriarch Josiah (Parker) and his developmentally-disabled son Thomas (Haze). Two siblings have flown the coop—Eli (Stahl) and Mary (Garner). The Biblical names are a clue to the background noise of the household. Mom Miriam is lengthy lifeless, and the native sheriff tells the story of her loss of life (it is horrifying) to 2 visiting oil males, who wish to purchase the Graham farm for drilling functions. That is not the one Graham secret. One of many secrets and techniques is not revealed till nearly the ultimate second of the movie, though you’ll be able to in all probability guess it early on. Josiah spends his days drunk, and Thomas caters to his dad, making an attempt to please him. One scene is so legitimately traumatizing that I’m nearly sorry I watched it. No matter what went down on this gloomy patch of land was unhealthy. Thomas is satisfied his mom haunts the place, wandering the grounds in the evening. Josiah is satisfied Miriam is in Hell, and it’s as much as the household to avoid wasting her from hellfire. This isn’t a workable plan to maneuver ahead.
Separated into three discrete chapters, one for every Graham baby, “What Josiah Saw” is sort of an anthology movie, every part distinct in model and temper. Not one of the Graham youngsters is doing nicely. The opening chapter belongs to Thomas. Dominated by his father, and traumatized by his total life’s historical past, Thomas can barely get via a second without bursting into tears. He retains his dad liquored up and may sleep in the evening. Eli is an ex-con (he did time for statutory rape: “I didn’t know she was 16”), is beneath suspicion for kidnapping a nine-year-old woman, and owes cash to scary guys who will kill him if he would not pay up. Mary, who had a tubal ligation as a younger lady (comprehensible, contemplating her household), is now pursuing adoption. Her husband (Tony Hale) appears nearly afraid of his spouse. Mary will not be nice. No adoption company of their proper thoughts would approve her utility. Finally, Eli and Mary are drawn again to the household farm, to confront their shared previous of degradation and terror.
Cinematographer Carlos Ritter creates the creepy temper: a lot of sluggish digicam strikes, remoted photographs of empty rooms, misty mild barely in a position to make it via the window panes. It provides an eerie sense of vacancy about to be stuffed by one thing horrible. The sordidness is sicker than something dreamt up by Flannery O’Connor. Nick Stahl, particularly, is terrific. I have been a fan since his trembling terrified teenage efficiency within the unfairly forgotten (and exhausting to seek out) “Eye of God.” Stahl has been via rather a lot, and it reveals on his face: it is etched with hardship, sensitivity, and ache.
“What Josiah Saw” goes down many bizarre byways. The weirdest is available in Eli’s chapter. Determined to pay his money owed, Eli agrees to go to a close-by carnival, run by “gypsies” (known as such within the movie), who apparently have a stash of “Jew gold” (once more, known as such), hoarded in the course of the Holocaust. The weirdness right here might have been a type of tangent just like the “Sister Christian” episode in “Boogie Nights” or any variety of the “episodes” in “Pulp Fiction,” the place the primary characters are drawn into facet “scenes” peopled with unpredictable characters. However this “gypsy” chapter vehicles in each stereotype of the Romani inhabitants (they’re thieves, they kidnap youngsters, they’re harmful, they consider curses, and so on.). These stereotypes date again centuries and have been used to sideline them, banish them, or—because the Nazis did—kill them. “What Josiah Saw” consists of a few precise newsreel clips, one displaying the enamel extracted from Jewish folks’ mouths by the Nazis, and one clip of what appears like a gaggle of Romani approaching a mass grave surrounded by troopers. Utilizing a clip of individuals being marched to their deaths, particularly in a scene the place the characters show the stereotypes utilized by the Nazis to justify their actions, is indefensible.