I Want To Believe again

October 29, 2010 5:12 PM

Scariest X-Files episodes?

I borrowed my friend's complete collection of X-Files episodes on DVD and would like to just watch the best (scariest) ones for Halloween weekend. Trouble is, I can't remember which ones they were. It's been a while since I've seen the show so any suggestions would be very grateful.

posted by cazoo to media & arts (40 answers total)

Home.
posted by honeydew at 5:15 PM on October 29, 2010 [25 favorites]

Having never seen any episodes I can't make any personal recommendations, but were I to come across a box set of the whole series I'd definitely set to reading MeFi's own cortex' Mulder's Big Adventure. (possessive much?)
posted by carsonb at 5:17 PM on October 29, 2010

I second Home. No contest.
posted by adamrice at 5:18 PM on October 29, 2010

(That would be season 4 episode 2. Freaked me the hell out.)
posted by honeydew at 5:18 PM on October 29, 2010

Yeah, I was coming in to say Home too. It turned me right off the Sheryl Crow song Home, which has no relation to the episode bar the title, but I still cannot listen to it without it reminding me of that episode.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:24 PM on October 29, 2010

Both episodes with Eugene Tooms ("Squeeze" and "Tooms"). I think I checked every duct, oven, toilet, closet, cabinet, etc. in my house after seeing the first one.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 5:25 PM on October 29, 2010 [11 favorites]

Home is terrifying.

I was also freaked out by Aubrey (in season 3), Deadalive (season 8, mostly for a particular sound effect), and Leonard Betts (season 4), all to a lesser extent than Home.
posted by bewilderbeast at 5:26 PM on October 29, 2010

I was also coming to say Home. You will never be able to listen to Johnny Mathis again.
posted by Gator at 5:26 PM on October 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Seconding the episodes with Tooms. Horrifying.
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:26 PM on October 29, 2010

I'm gonna have to agree with everyone else here. I still remember watching that episode, and not just because I had a Finnish exchange student sitting in my lap.
posted by dortmunder at 5:27 PM on October 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, and definitely The Host, featuring the Flukeman! Season 2, episode 2.
posted by Gator at 5:28 PM on October 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Also, Irresistible. The one with the mortuary worker who collects fingernails...
posted by BlahLaLa at 5:28 PM on October 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

I gotta recommend "Humbug" for Halloween viewing. My favorite episode ever. Not exactly scariest, just...freaky :).
posted by madmethods at 5:31 PM on October 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Squeeze and Home.

And Holy Mother of God "Darkness Falls"; though that may only be scary to people who've spent time (walking) days away from civilization in the BC woods.
posted by Mitheral at 5:32 PM on October 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Seconding Home and the Tooms episodes. But also want to add Død Kalm, the episode with the boat that ages people. That ep was simply... freaky.
posted by strixus at 5:35 PM on October 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Seconding Squeeze.
The episode co-authored by Stephen King was "Chinga" in season 5, and was pretty creepy.
posted by SarahbytheSea at 5:38 PM on October 29, 2010

Home and The Host, for sure.
posted by Kafkaesque at 5:48 PM on October 29, 2010

Two not already mentioned: Die Hand Die Verletzt (2.14) is early Monster of the Week at the top of its game, and Millennium (7.04) is some solid, scary zombie fun.
posted by oinopaponton at 5:52 PM on October 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Die Hand Die Verletzt and Home were the freakiest for me.
posted by christinetheslp at 6:07 PM on October 29, 2010

Oh yeah, definitely Die Hand Die Verletzt.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:37 PM on October 29, 2010

Home, followed by Detour (season 5) -- survivors of DeSoto's search for the fountain of youth with glowing eyes!
posted by mdiskin at 7:21 PM on October 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ice. It's a total rip-off of The Thing, but it's very well done.
posted by infinitewindow at 7:35 PM on October 29, 2010

Home. And also that one with the evil doll. Let's play with the hammer!
posted by asperity at 8:14 PM on October 29, 2010

(Oh, the one with the doll was apparently Chinga.)
posted by asperity at 8:16 PM on October 29, 2010

I came in to tell you a little about Eugene Tooms (*shudder*), but I'm happy to see that he creeped the hell out of so many other people, too!
posted by Mael Oui at 9:24 PM on October 29, 2010

Like everyone else (apparently), "Home" is the one episode that has stayed with me for the 14 years since it aired.
posted by Johnny Assay at 9:25 PM on October 29, 2010

"Detour" is pretty good. For a David Lynch-vibe, check out "Beyond the Sea" from season one. There is a death scene from this one episode called "Schizogeny" that was unsettling (the rest was not too scary, though).

And I admit that the butt genie in "Badlaa" freaked me out. For the most part, the creepiest episodes are in seasons 1-4, maybe 5. Everything else after that is garbage.
posted by extramundane at 9:39 PM on October 29, 2010

Home. I saw it while on a band trip--there seemed to be a fan of the show in every hotel room, so we all ended up watching it. It's all we were talking about the next morning.

I'm not even sure where we were that year, if it was Tennessee or Disney World. All I remember is that episode.
posted by weskit at 9:43 PM on October 29, 2010

I though Unruhe was both pretty scary and an awfully well-constructed high-tension thriller. Forced icepick lobotomies. *shudder*
posted by mr_roboto at 9:45 PM on October 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Home and seconding Unruhe - a friend and I watched Unruhe and now, years later, still freak each other out by pretending we're going to stick something sharp in each other's eye and muttering about Howlers. (I'm sure we're not funny to anyone else, but the ep is good .)
posted by wuzandfuzz at 10:49 PM on October 29, 2010

I second Ice in terms of squeamishness, very much like the worms from Wrath of Khan. Blech.
posted by darlingmagpie at 11:09 PM on October 29, 2010

No one else though Firewalker was worthy of mention?

There's also a later season episode that creeped me out wherein a man is seeing large bugs in the shadows (Folie a Deux) .
posted by frmrpreztaft at 1:14 AM on October 30, 2010

It's not a scary episode, but my all-time favourite instalment of The X-Files was Bad Blood.
posted by teatime at 4:35 AM on October 30, 2010

Seconding "Folie a Deux," that scared the absolute bejesus out of me.

You HAVE to watch at least ONE episode with Donny Pfaster, come on.. Try "Irresistible" (and "Orison"). Epicly creepy.

If you want something scary but pretty hilarious, I liked "Arcadia."

"The Host," "Chinga" and "Squeeze" are some ones that stuck with me. And yes, "Humbug!" For some reason I distinctly remember those crawling-perspective scenes.
posted by mostlybecky at 8:24 AM on October 30, 2010

I'd go with a "Beyond the Sea," "Bad Blood," and "Home" kind of night--- Brad Dourif as Luther Lee Boggs is incredible. Lighten the mood with some serious Mulder-Scully back-and-forth bickering, and bring it home with the most disturbing episode in X-Files history.
posted by inkytea at 9:12 AM on October 30, 2010

I think my vote goes to "Sanginarium," which features plastic surgery gone horribly awry.
posted by unsub at 9:31 AM on October 30, 2010

Awesome guys! Thanks for all the suggestions.
posted by cazoo at 11:19 AM on October 30, 2010

As someone who hates roaches, I'd add "War of the Coprophages." But that's more something on the lighter side, which it might've been the best of on that level.

I'll have to watch "Home" again sometime. I don't remember it being scary as much as it was creepy. One trivia note: It was so disturbing that Fox never aired it in repeats.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 12:47 PM on October 30, 2010

Humbug. just for that great last line.....
posted by Redhush at 9:52 PM on October 30, 2010

Not mentioned yet - Elegy. The ghost behind the bowling machine! Terrifying. Also: The Calusari - evil ghost twin horror!!
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 5:00 AM on October 31, 2010