October Faction (TV series)

Lore & Background

October Faction centers on Fred and Deloris Allen, a married couple who are supernatural hunters working for a secret organization called Presidio. After the death of Fred's father Samuel, the family returns to Barrington-on-Hudson, New York, to arrange the funeral. Their teenage twins, Geoff and Viv, begin exhibiting supernatural abilities, including Viv having visions of a creature chained to the seafloor and Geoff accidentally revealing a teacher's secret. The Allens must hide their true identities from the townsfolk while dealing with strange occurrences in the town.

The cast includes Tamara Taylor as Deloris Allen, J. C. MacKenzie as Fred Allen, Aurora Dawson-Hunte as Viv Allen, Gabriel Darku as Geoff Allen, Wendy Crewson as Maggie Allen, Megan Follows as Edith Mooreland, and Stephen McHattie as Samuel Allen. Maxim Roy appears as Alice Harlow, a murderous witch hunting the Allens. Filming took place in Cambridge, Ontario from September to December 2018.

Reader's Guide

October Faction represents a short-lived entry in Netflix's supernatural drama lineup, adapting Steve Niles and Damien Worm's comic series. The series received a 29% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 7 reviews, with critics noting unfinished plotlines while some found it quirky and entertaining. Its cancellation after one season in March 2020 left its storylines unresolved. The show is notable for featuring an openly gay teenage protagonist, Geoff Allen, and for its focus on a family of monster hunters balancing secret identities with small-town life. Despite its brief run, it remains a reference point for adaptations of independent comics and for Netflix's pattern of canceling genre series after a single season.

The Family at the Center

October Faction centers on the Allen family, a unit bound by both blood and a dangerous secret. Fred and Deloris Allen are a married couple who work as supernatural hunters for Presidio, a covert organization dedicated to shielding ordinary people from the various monstrous creatures that roam the world. Their twin teenage children, Viv and Geoff, are navigating the ordinary trials of high school while also beginning to display their own unsettling supernatural abilities. The story kicks into motion after the death of Fred's father, Samuel, which forces the family to return to Barrington-on-Hudson, a quiet New York town steeped in Fred's painful childhood memories, including the loss of his brother and years of being measured against impossible standards. In this sleepy setting, the Allens must maintain the facade of a normal household while strange and dangerous events spiral around them. Viv's impromptu séance conjures a vision of a long-haired creature chained beneath the ocean, and Geoff inadvertently exposes a teacher's hidden secret in front of his classmates, marking the twins as outsiders in a community that already resists difference.

An Ensemble of Hunters and Haunts

The series assembles a layered ensemble that extends well beyond the core family. Tamara Taylor brings grounded intensity to Deloris, the Presidio hunter who anchors the household, while J. C. MacKenzie portrays Fred, a man from a long line of supernatural hunters carrying deep-seated resentment about his father's expectations. Aurora Dawson-Hunte and Gabriel Darku play the twin siblings Viv and Geoff, the latter being an openly gay teenager who befriends a closeted jock named Phillip Mishra. Maxim Roy delivers a chilling turn as Alice Harlow, a murderous warlock and the twins' biological mother, who stalks the family after having killed her own relatives. Stephen McHattie appears as Samuel, Fred's father, who is presumed dead but is actually held as a prisoner by Presidio. Wendy Crewson plays Maggie, a retired Presidio archivist, and Megan Follows takes on the role of Edith Mooreland, the organization's head. The supporting cast rounds out the world with a werewolf named Moshe who becomes an unlikely ally, a local sheriff, a ghostly student visible only to Geoff, and a pair of teenage bullies who target the twins.

From Comic Pages to the Screen

October Faction traces its roots to a comic book series by Steve Niles and Damien Worm, which provided the foundational mythology for the television adaptation. Damian Kindler served as the show's creator, writer, and executive producer, shaping the source material into a ten-episode Netflix order announced on September 28, 2018. The production brought together a slate of directors including Director X, Megan Follows, Mina Shum, and David Frazee, while additional executive producers such as James Thorpe, Steve Niles, Thomas Walden, Eric Birnberg, George Strayton, and Melissa Blake helped shepherd the project. High Park Entertainment and IDW Entertainment were the production companies behind the series. Principal photography took place on location in Cambridge, Ontario, spanning from September through December 2018. The casting process followed the series order, with the principal ensemble confirmed shortly thereafter and Maxim Roy joining the project in a recurring capacity in October 2018. The official trailer debuted on January 8, 2020, just two weeks before the full season dropped on the streaming platform.

A Brief Run and a Bittersweet Farewell

October Faction premiered on Netflix on January 23, 2020, and its window of availability was remarkably short. Just over two months later, on March 30, 2020, Netflix announced the cancellation of the series after its single season, leaving numerous narrative threads unresolved. Critical reception was mixed at best. On Rotten Tomatoes, the show accumulated a 29 percent approval rating with an average score of 5.5 out of 10, based on a modest pool of seven reviews. Critics who were less favorable pointed to plotlines that felt underdeveloped or left hanging, a common complaint when a series is cut short before it can pay off its setup. Yet a number of reviewers acknowledged the show's quirky tone and found it genuinely entertaining, expressing a sense of regret that the project was shelved so quickly. The combination of a distinctive supernatural family premise, a committed ensemble cast, and a small-town New York setting gave the series a particular flavor that its brief existence meant few viewers ever got the chance to fully appreciate.