R-rated director's cut of X-Files film restores Chris Carter's original horror vision

When a group of women is mysteriously abducted, it becomes a case right out of The X-Files. Years after walking away from the FBI, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are pulled back from the shadows when a federal agent vanishes without a trace. In a case you’d never see on TV, their only lead is a disgraced, defrocked priest claiming to have horrific psychic visions of the crime. Forced to confront the ghosts of their past, the partners must navigate a chilling winter landscape and an even darker human monstrosity. The truth of these crimes is out there somewhere… and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it. Ars Technica caught up with Carter to learn more. Ars Technica: Back in 2008, you said that if I Want to Believe did well, there was a third X-Files film you were eager to make. Is that still ticking away in the back of your mind? Chris Carter: It is ticking away in the back of my mind. If you watch the two reboots, there are four episodes [collectively] called “My Struggle.” They are the bookends for each of those series. They ended up in a place where people either loved me or hated me—when Scully revealed that she was pregnant. That is part of a bigger story, and I want to tell that story sometime. Right now, I think everyone’s focus is more on the Ryan Coogler reboot, and I don’t want to do anything to get in the way of that. I respect him, admire him, and want to see his vision. The story that I want to tell, if it is told—and I sure hope it will be—will be apart from that, but we certainly can’t ignore it. Ars Technica: Did you envision when you created The X-Files that the series would become such a cultural touchstone for so many people? Chris Carter: No, I didn’t. I was sitting alone in my mid-30s. I’m working in Hollywood. I’ve been hired to create TV shows. I love movies like the Sherlock Holmes movie Murder by Decree. I love Kolchak: The Night Stalker. I have all these things that are inspiring me. I put them all together into a—call it a kiln. And I fired the kiln, and I opened it up and it’s The X-Files. I had never in my wildest dreams believed that I’d be sitting here talking to you today about The X-Files, that there’d be a Lego set coming out, that it would’ve changed people’s lives. At the 30th reunion anniversary in Minneapolis, I had 12-year-old, 10-year-old kids come up and say they love the show. And I have to think to myself, “Your parents probably didn’t even know each other when the show first aired.” I’ll tell you another story that is near and dear to me. My wife and I were running on the beach not long ago; we run for 10 minutes, and we walk for a minute. When we started walking in that minute, I look up and I see an image that I recognize immediately. I start walking toward this young woman in her early 20s who’s wearing a graduation gown and holding her mortarboard in her hand. On the top of the cap, it’s got an image of Mulder and Scully. And it says, “The future is out there.” I say, “I know that image.” She said, “Oh yeah, it’s Mulder and Scully from The X-Files.” And I said, “I know, I know. I wrote that show.” It was a wonderful moment. She didn’t grow up with the show, she found the show. That’s the mind-blowing thing to me: it inspired her enough to put it on her graduation gown and cap. That kind of thing you can never imagine when you sit down to create something. The X-Files: I Want to Believe–Vrach Frankenshteyn is now streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. Credit: 20th century fox Credit: 20th century fox