What Josiah Saw

A savage slice of southern gothic is an expertly concocted slow-burn, brimming with unease and dread.

It's true that the film is more noir like drama than straight up horror, which sadly means that the jumpscare crowd will probably downvote it excessively. I truly can't comprehend how horrorfans don't seem more open to embrace the various subgenres the films of fright has to offer - jumpscares, gore, slow-burn or whatever - as long as the product is competently made, what's the difference. Try reading a few reviews first to get a feel for the material and maybe you won't feel so cheated.

Grim, bleak and utterly captivating, topped off by a pitchblack ending.

Hell I loved this film.

First up, I know this movie won't be to everyone's taste. It is a real slow burn, and the movie is a Drama/Thriller rather than horror.

Having said that, the acting is bordering on faultless for the four main characters, and the writing is top notch.

It is split into four parts, the first three following the three children, then the last part is the reunion. I don't think I'm giving away a plot point here, but the mother commits suicide and the family fractures. The father dominates one of his sons, but the other two move away.

It's hard to say too much else without giving away any anything, but. Despite its early disparity, it all comes together at the end. Sort of.

This movie was twisted. Hard to watch and hard to stop watching. Without revealing any spoilers; this film visits some disturbing life potentials that most of us aren't exposed to but , unfortunately, we have known people who are. The dynamics across father, son, siblings....in a whacked out environment. Not really a horror film. More of a psychological thriller / drama.

Don't Really know how I feel after watching this. I think it's better than average. But, this is a strange flick. If you decide to watch it, allow yourself extra time to watch something else afterwards as I don't think you want to go to sleep thinking about this one. It's just weird.

This one ended up being better than I thought it was going to be from first impression. This twisted family-drama thriller with a sprinkle of horror is set up in almost an anthology format, which I found interesting because the way they executed it, it felt different and somewhat fresh.

Chapter one was a tad confusing, felt like it moved very fast and didn't really draw me in. There was a lot of yelling and it became grating after a bit. Despite that, the acting was good from both the dad and the son, but I wasn't convinced as a whole. There were also some scenes that felt superfluous and were in there for shock/cringe value. I wish I could put my finger on it but it was my least favorite of all of them, but not necessarily unsuccessful.

I would encourage you to stick with it cause chapter two was when I started to enjoy myself. This had the best acting of the lot with the brother Eli really shining. I also found this to be the most interesting and engaging of the three sibling's stories.

Chapter three (the sister) and chapter 4 (the finale) blended together a little. The sisters backstory was... fine. She had me up and down with her acting. There were times when I was right there with her, and then she would throw me off with an odd delivery or a bitting of the lip. Regardless, I do think she did a good job overall. Also, it was nice to see Tony Hale do something different, good job.

The finale felt, very that... a finale. There were some (while not wildly original) fun and moderately unexpected twists and turns. It got exciting and I wish that had lasted a tad longer. With THAT being said, this movie did NOT need to be any longer... haha. The run time of two hours was a tad excessive and I think it would have been much more successful if it was trimmed down and more concise.

Some general observations... the movie looked very nice and professional, with a nice quality and some cool shots. I was hot and cold with the score. Sometimes I thought there were cool choices made and other times I was like can you turn that noise down or off it's distracting lol. Also I felt the script/ dialogue was a tad underdeveloped and sounded a bit juvenile/cliche at times.

As I said, over all I ended up liking this one more than I thought I would. You will definitely need some patience and be forgiving of some missteps but in total I found it to be an enjoyable experience with some spookiness, some thrills, some twists and turns, and some solid performances. Would recommend.

Wow, what did I just watch? It's really hard to explain what's going on until the last few minutes, and even then you still feel like you don't really get the whole story. This movie is about sin and what to do to "make things right". However, there is a long way to the resolution with many loose ends to tie up, which eventually happens. So please be patient as this is a slow burner for sure.

The acting is top notch. Haven't seen such a good performance in a long time. Robert Patrick, Nick Stahl, Scott Haze and Kelli Garner do a fantastic job of making everything as unsettling as possible.

This is a dark strange unsettling masterpiece that deserves a much higher rating!