What Josiah Saw

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Thomas "Tommy" Graham is a man with intellectual disability who lives on a farm in Texas with his abusive and alcoholic father Josiah. His twin siblings Eli and Mary have long since left the farm.

Two representatives of an oil company are looking to buy the farm and the land around it for oil drilling. The assemblyman they contact for assistance informs them that the Graham property has a troubled past, due to Josiah's wife Miriam hanging herself in their garden several decades prior.

Tommy goes to a shop and speaks to a young boy named Tanner, whom he is not supposed to speak to. Later, Tommy admits to Josiah that he looks for his mother at night through the window and notes that people are talking about her death, causing Josiah to slap him.

The next day, Josiah tells Tommy that Miriam's spirit visited him while he was asleep and told him that they need to right their ways to save her from hell. He orders Tommy to clean up the house. Josiah later finds a pornographic magazine under Tommy's bed and forces him to masturbate to it. That night, Josiah tells Tommy that God has something that needs to be done.

Eli Graham is a convicted sex offender who did time for the statutory rape of a sixteen year old girl five years prior and is in deep debt due to gambling and drugs. He is briefly arrested due to a 9 year old girl having gone missing in the vicinity.

Eli is forced to accept a job from Boone, a bartender and criminal, to steal some Nazi gold from a band of Romani in exchange for his record being cleared and his debt being settled. He is accompanied by two men, and is tasked with keeping the Romani distracted at a party they are having while the two men steal the gold.

At the party, Eli bonds with Gina, a Romani, who offers to provide consultation with a fortune teller. The fortune teller reads his palms and initially provides innocuous details about Eli, but later says that Eli is going to die and that he could not save "her". She then reads his tea leaves and says that he is the reason his mother is burning, he is running from something "unspeakable" and that he has come to steal their gold. The Romani proceed to kill the two men Eli came with; during the commotion, he spots the missing girl in the building.

Eli obtains the chest containing the gold and rescues the girl. They manage to escape the pursuing Romani by car, and Eli brings the gold to Boone. Boone falls over dead while examining the gold. Eli brings the girl to the sheriff, who lets him go. He returns to the trailer he lives in and finds a letter from the oil company offering to buy the farm.

Mary Milner and her husband Ross are at an adoption agency looking to qualify to adopt a child. The agent asks Mary about her tubal ligation operation she had 20 years ago. Mary explains she was "young" and it was before she knew she wanted to be a mother. The agent expresses concerns about the couple filing for separation six years ago, and asks Mary if she would be open to psychiatric evaluation. That night, Mary becomes defensive at a dinner party when a friend tells her she would be a wonderful mother. After dinner, Ross angrily confronts her about her remarks and over past threats she made to kill herself. While sleeping, she dreams that she is stabbing herself in the stomach.

The next day, Eli arrives at Mary's place to discuss the offer by the oil company to buy the farm. Eli tries to convince her to sign off on the offer, but she decides she'll go back to the farm, so that she'll know it's gone for good.

Mary and Eli arrive at the farm and reunite with Tommy for the first time in years. Tommy informs Josiah that the twins have arrived, and Josiah says that they are the reason their mother is "burning" while watching them walk through the garden. Tommy and Mary talk together in the kitchen, while Eli tries to dig up something buried in the garden without success.

That night, the three siblings sit together with Josiah, and it is revealed that Tommy has been repeatedly and unknowingly violating his restraining order against his ex-wife and their son Tanner. Tommy accuses Eli and Mary of committing incest due to Mary having a child when they were young. It is then revealed that Josiah has been dead for 23 years and Tommy has been interacting with a hallucination of him throughout the film. Josiah abused Tommy and Eli and molested Mary when they were children, leading to Mary becoming pregnant. Mrs Graham committed suicide after learning that Josiah had impregnated Mary, which prompted the three siblings to kill Josiah and bury his body in the garden.

Eli breaks open a chest to reveal the skeletons of Mary's child and Josiah. Tommy snaps completely and kills Eli and Mary with an axe. Josiah's hallucination drinks from a cup while seated on his chair. The final scene reveals that Eli and Mary had sex at the motel they stayed at prior to coming to the farm.

In a post-credits scene, Josiah lunges at the camera while laughing maniacally.

• Robert Patrick as Josiah Graham
• Nick Stahl as Eli Graham
• Scott Haze as Thomas Graham
• Kelli Garner as Mary Milner
• Jake Weber as Boone
• Tony Hale as Ross Milner
• Ronnie Gene Blevins as Billy
• Dana Namerode as Gypsy Gina
• Riley Kahn as Little Girl

In December 2019, it was announced that filming had wrapped in Oklahoma.^[1][2] Some scenes were removed from the film's final cut, including a scene in which Josiah torments Mary, which Patrick described as his favorite scene to film, and one that delved into Mary's trauma.^[3]

The film had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on August 13, 2021.^[4] The distribution rights were acquired by Shudder in April 2022;^[5] it was released on the platform on August 4, 2022.^[6]