Shot over a year from one Halloween to the next leading in to the family Halloween party, “October Country” is a documentary based not around monsters or demons or the undead, but around a family living in the shadows of their past. We visit the Mosher family, a small rather disconnected group of people all haunted by ghosts of war, and by their endless slew of bad decisions that have led them down a road of pain, misery, scars, and distorted memories keeping them in a state of ignorance and sadness that carries on from one generation to the next, all of whom hopelessly indoctrinated by cigarettes.
A dad still scarred by the memories of war, a mom whose wisdom often falls on deaf ears, a young daughter Daneal who prefers to live in a state of sheer denial that her father who was a violent and abusive man was really gentle constantly going in and out of abusive relationships and forced to give up her newborn daughter, another daughter forced to live in her own fantasy world, and the youngest child who does nothing but laugh at life and displays some keen observations about her family and her life. “October Country” is a miserable and often bleak documentary that is so focused on a family who, even in their brightest moments, are sill so utterly miserable living on lies and dysfunction, all of whom have so much to say about one another and prefer just to let some things remain unsaid.
The primary theme of the film is the constant snake eating its own tail as every single family member are stuck in a rut after making one terrible decision and the potential for the youngest daughter to head down the very path of resentment and hatred that will possibly lead her in to her mom’s life of abuse, misery, and unwanted children she’s convinced herself she must have to achieve some unreachable goal of the perfect family. The two most fascinating individuals of the family is Denise a young woman so entrenched in pain and suffering she hides in her small house painted with fantasy and witchcraft characters and is so fascinated with death that she seeks solace in unseen spirits in local cemeteries hoping to speak with ghosts or apparitions and likely seeking some form of peace of mind that there is an after life and possible reward for this continuous suffering.
And there’s Desi, a little girl so woefully filled with bliss and optimism that she’s much more aware of her family’s faults that even they are. She is a girl who is on the surface oblivious to what’s occurring around her, but when put in front of a camera elicits such pearls of wisdom and insight that it’s absolutely shocking–and yet she doesn’t really want the full extent of what her education has to offer, especially in the growing state of hatred for her family. One of the most frustrating aspects of the documentary is matriarch Dottie’s insistence in believing in the goodness in people, and this leads her down a horrible path as she struggles to cling to her relationship with foster child Chris, a reckless and lecherous young man who hurts the family over and over but relies on the fact that Dottie refuses to abandon him.
Directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher never once manipulate or intervene in any of the situations that occur on screen and allow the family to naturally motivate one another in to confronting their own issues and explaining to the audience that these people are all doomed to be in a perpetual ring of misery and sadness until they confront their pasts and anger. And this will likely never happen. Thus, they’re infinitely doomed, and that’s what makes “October Country” such a bleak and harrowing documentary. Sometimes ghosts don’t have to come from the grave to haunt someone, and “October Country” is the picture of a family eternally haunted and destroyed by their past scarred, wounded, and torn down by an relentless chain of resentment, hatred, disgust, and misery that lingers over them like a specter, and it’s truly one of the most compelling films I’ve ever seen, barnone.