5 Creepiest Episodes Of The X-Files, Ranked

All you need to do is listen to the opening music of “The X-Files,” one of the greatest theme songs of the ’90s, to know that the paranormal series can get scary. For all its sci-fi trappings, horror is an essential part of the show’s DNA. 

Alien abduction sits at the heart of the show’s larger mythology, while many of its one-off “Monster of the Week” episodes venture even further into horror. What scares one viewer might not faze another, but these five episodes of “The X-Files” are undeniably chilling. The threats include a death-obsessed killer, a slug-like parasite worshipped by a cult, a deadly high-speed drive, a cannibal with a knack for tight squeezes, and, of course, the Peacock family.

Not every episode of “The X-Files” aims for horror, of course, but the following five are more likely to have you covering your eyes than laughing. 

This Season 6 episode is widely praised, and even doubles as a sneak preview of “Breaking Bad” because it was written by Vince Gilligan and guest-stars Bryan Cranston. However, “Drive” isn’t always appreciated for how scary it is.

“Drive” follows Cranston’s Patrick Crump, a bigoted man living in Nevada who is arrested following a high-speed chase that ends with his wife’s head exploding in the back seat. When Mulder (David Duchovny) investigates, he soon discovers that Crump is suffering from the same deadly head pressure. The excruciating pain only abates if he moves west, forcing the two onto a desperate drive to save Crump’s life while Scully (Gillian Anderson) uncovers the possible source: low-frequency waves from an antenna on a United States Navy base.

The body horror of the painful, deadly pressure combined with the stress of the road makes “Drive” an unsettling watch. As Crump writhes in pain, it’s hard not to imagine feeling a little something off inside your own head. Perhaps even more terrifying is Mulder’s helplessness; all he can do is drive, and the moments when he somberly announces they’re running out of gas — or highway — are chilling.

Unlike most episodes of “The X-Files,” this Season 2 installment features no direct paranormal elements. The lack of UFOs, cryptids, or ghosts only makes “Irresistible” more unnerving. The episode follows Donnie Pfaster (Nick Chinlund), an assistant funeral director who is obsessed with death and begins mutilating bodies before turning to murder. In the original script, Pfaster was meant to be a necrophiliac, but Fox rejected that pitch.

Scully is especially disturbed by Pfaster’s crimes and has demonic dreams about him. Those dreams are the only borderline paranormal aspects of the story; what happens next is all too real when Pfaster kidnaps her. Mulder rescues Scully in time, but afterward, the typically stoic agent breaks down in his arms. Seeing one of the show’s protagonists in such a vulnerable state only makes Pfaster feel more terrifying.

In the book “X-Files Confidential,” episode director David Nutter said series creator Chris Carter, who also wrote “Irresistible,” wanted the episode to show that “not all terror comes from the paranormal. It could come from the person next door.”

The first Monster of the Week episode of “The X-Files” is also one of the best and scariest. As just the show’s third episode, and the first that wasn’t focused on UFO-centric mythology, “Squeeze” was important in establishing what the series could be. It wasn’t just a sci-fi conspiracy show; it could also be a horror program.

In “Squeeze,” Mulder and Scully investigate a series of killings that Mulder believes are awfully similar to murders that happened 30 years earlier — and another spree from 60 years before that. The culprit is revealed to be Eugene Tooms (Doug Hutchison), a man with a strange mutation that allows him to squeeze and contort his body to slip through narrow spaces to kill his victims and consume their livers. Tooms emerges every three decades to consume five livers before entering another long period of hibernation, making him functionally immortal.

Hutchison’s performance reminds one of Anthony Hopkins’ Oscar-winning turn in “The Silence of the Lambs,” as he makes for a profoundly creepy villain. It’s little wonder that Tooms became one of only a handful of Monster of the Week baddies to return for a second episode. That return, “Tooms,” aired later in Season 1.

“Roadrunners” is certainly one of the more gruesome installments of “The X-Files,” and one of the scarier ones. The Season 8 episode has Scully investigating a murder in a small town in the Utah desert. She soon discovers that all of the residents are sacrificing hitchhikers and other drifters in the hopes that a large slug-like creature they worship as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will accept the victim as a suitable host. Scully finds herself captive to the townsfolk, and it’s only when her new partner John Doggett (Robert Patrick), who was assigned to the X-Files following Mulder’s disappearance, arrives and cuts the creature out of her that she’s saved.

The slug, a complex animatronic modeled after a banana slug, is disgusting, as are the scenes where it’s inserted or removed from a victim’s flesh. In a behind-the-scenes featurette originally included on the Season 8 DVD release, producer Paul Rabwin said that camera operators started to “lose it” because the scene was so gross and intense.

“Home” is widely regarded as one of the scariest episodes of “The X-Files,” and rightly so. In a behind-the-scenes featurette, director Kim Manners said when he first read the script, he thought it was “as classic a horror script as I’m ever going to see.” 

The episode has Mulder and Scully head to the town of Home, Pennsylvania, to investigate a deformed corpse that might be linked to the Peacock family — a reclusive group who have been living in an off-the-grid farmhouse for decades and are allegedly inbreeding murderers. When the duo enter the farmhouse, they discover booby traps, fend off attacks from the three Peacock brothers, and find their quadruple-amputee mother living under the bed.

“Home” technically doesn’t feature any paranormal elements, but the Peacock family is so much in the mold of iconic horror villains from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and “The Hills Have Eyes” that they certainly don’t feel mundane. It is extremely intense, disturbing, and grotesque horror. Chris Carter recalled in a behind-the-scenes documentary that producer Joseph Patrick Finn wondered if they’d “gone too far this time,” and “Home” became the only “X-Files” episode to earn a TV-MA rating. Despite, or perhaps because of, its infamous scares, “Home” became an acclaimed fan-favorite episode.