“What Josiah Saw” (2021): Inevitable Horror in the Style of Southern Gothic. Film Review.
What Josiah Saw is a very distinctive psychological horror, or even a thriller within the style trends of recent years. Metaphorical and full of clues connecting parallel storylines, it is still designed for the prepared viewer. In that it’s rather slow, and hardly a “light read” for an evening (I always warn you about that).
What Josiah Saw tells the story of the Graham family, long ago broken up because of terrible secrets of the past. The movie is set in an isolated farmhouse where the patriarch of the family, Josiah Graham, resides with his adult son Thomas.
One day, Josiah claims to have received a vision from God in which he was shown how to atone for the family’s sins. At this time, Josiah’s other children, Eli and Mary, return home after a long absence, each carrying the weight of personal trauma and torment. The family reunion takes place amidst the uncovering of old grudges, dark memories, and mysterious events that force each of them to face their own demons.
First and foremost, this movie is a metaphor for the personal hell we not only theoretically go to after death, but also live in. In essence, this earthly hell is inevitable and endless, and may not even be realized by those who are in it. The worst hell is unfolding here and now for the unfortunate who have made the wrong choice or simply found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time (these, however, in the eyes of some, are interchangeable concepts).
The movie has three chapters in its structure, logically and expectedly connecting into one story at the end of the movie. I like this book structure, because it seems to me as if it exposes the corset of the script, first of all, it exposes a little bit of the corset of the script, and this in turn somehow immediately creates the feeling of a reliable, clear thought of the author.
I would like to give a special credit to the denouement, which asserts the most southerly (thanks to the dictionary of synonyms), earthly origin of all the torments of the main characters. A turn not typical of classic horror movies, where, on the contrary, the mystical and the mundane diverge into their own worlds, and everything settles down. Still, a logically structured denouement, which is more inherent in detectives, cannot be so childish not to please the brain looking for explanations for everything.
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In general, I can call this movie a successful example of how a director is able to feel and reflect the needs of modern viewers, as well as to rethink the usual plots, anoutrages and narratives.
