Aaron Murray Loud and Clear Reviews Mar 3, 2026 3.5/5

A deeply disturbing and novelistic tale of generational trauma and the horrors it holds.

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Joonatan Itkonen Region Free Jul 3, 2024 4/5

For those who can bear the devastation, Grashaw’s steadfast direction delivers a complex and powerful payoff. It’s a haunting waking nightmare that seeps into the soul.

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Nuha Hassan The UnderSCENE Jul 20, 2023

What Josiah Saw is a slow-burn psychological thriller in which the story is spread out to reveal what is underneath the terrible lives of the Graham siblings.

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Filipe Freitas Always Good Movies Aug 25, 2022 3.5/5

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.

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Caitlyn Downs ScaredSheepless.com Aug 21, 2022 3.5/5

A gloomy horror focused on dark family secrets.

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Joel Fisher Battle Royale With Cheese Aug 10, 2022

The premise and framing of What Josiah Saw is clever and may offer something different for Shudder viewers as it’s beautifully shot with great performances all round.

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Brian Costello Common Sense Media Aug 10, 2022 3/5

This is a difficult and disturbing horror of the Southern gothic school.

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Peter Gray The AU Review Aug 10, 2022 3.5/5

Vincent Grashaw‘s self-contained chiller continually subverts our expectations with a brutal eeriness that’s likely to divide its audience between those who are enveloped by its slow burn mentality and those who prefer their horrors far less subtle.

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CJ Johnson Film Mafia Aug 9, 2022 3.5/5

Pure, raw, undiluted American Gothic with all the trimmings. Here is a vibe, a voice, a style and a mood, all of a piece, managing to wear its influences proudly yet roll them into something original and fresh.

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Robert Kojder Flickering Myth Aug 9, 2022 3.5/5

The dark screenplay, arresting performances, shifting tones, and suffocating Southern Gothic atmosphere render What Josiah Saw more than worth seeing

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Noel Murray Los Angeles Times Aug 8, 2022

Dilts and Grashaw build out “What Josiah Saw” thoughtfully, letting the dread from one story bleed into the next, until everything is covered in a dark, dark stain.

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Andrew Murray The Upcoming Aug 8, 2022 3/5

What Josiah Saw weaves a multi-faceted tale of trauma that reaches far in its scope. It comes as a disappointment, then, that it sacrifices its sombre tone for cheap blockbuster thrills

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Andy Lea Daily Express (UK) Aug 5, 2022 4/5

There was one twist too many for me. But the performances are excellent, the dialogue is sharp and director Vincent Grashaw ties his very different tales together with a consistently menacing tone.

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Sheila O'Malley RogerEbert.com Aug 4, 2022 2/4

The family trauma is so clotted-thick, a faster pace and tightened-up editing might have eradicated the slow-motion underwater feel of the whole.

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Aurora Amidon Paste Magazine Aug 4, 2022 7.2/10

The film’s inertia reveals it for what it truly is: A meditation on religious trauma and Christian guilt.

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John Townsend Starburst Aug 4, 2022 4/5

While perhaps requiring a tighter edit, What Josiah Saw is nevertheless an effectively unsettling, often uncomfortable watch, and the tense, shocking finale will linger long after the film is over.

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Nathaniel Muir AIPT Aug 4, 2022

What Josiah Saw is not concerned with making anyone feel good. It is rooted in the horror based around sins of the parents and can be an extremely troubling watch. It is unafraid to pull off scabs to show the ugly scars that people carry with them.

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Dennis Harvey 48 Hills Aug 3, 2022

The blood-and-thunder atmospherics arestrikingly potent, in both visual and sonic design terms, and the performances strong.

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Josh Bell CBR Aug 3, 2022

An episodic slog through vaguely ominous scenarios that mostly don't amount to anything.

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Chase Hutchinson Collider Aug 3, 2022 A-

As it picks its way through the rubble of the characters’ lives, it stumbles upon something profoundly honest yet deeply disconcerting underneath the horror.

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