Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Case 01, File 11: Eve

AKA: Come Play With Us Mulder


While twins are not universally creepy, there is something about them that other people can find...odd. I remember watching a video which involved Tegan and Sara (who are twins, and one of my favorite bands) and they mentioned how they would occasionally wear the same outfit, even when they're miles apart, without coordinating, and I found that to be odd.

This oddness can easily be pushed into creepiness with proper framing and direction, and many great films have made use of these, either as a central element (David Cronenberg's excellent Dead Ringers) or as a minor scene (the infamous scene in Kubrick's The Shining). And while it was inevitable that The X-Files would get in on it, this is one conceit I don't think anyone expected them to ramp up to 11.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Case 01, File 10: Fallen Angel

AKA: If it Bleeds, We Can Kill - Oh Never Mind



Over the course of 9 seasons, it became increasingly clear to anyone watching that The X-Files really didn't have much in the way of an overarching plan for its Myth Arc. I was never 100 percent clear if they had a plan to begin with and ran out of it, ala Battlestar Galactica or if they just were making it up as they go along from the word go. As a result, the rules, goals and appearances of the aliens tends to be somewhat...shall we say, inconsistent?