X-Files--"Unruhe"

I have a penchant for the crime/horror episodes of The X-Files in which the paranormal elements take a backseat to the complete madness of the villain. “Unruhe” (German for ’unrest”) is a fine example. It is also a showcase for the best, often underused aspects of the main characters in their crime solving. Namely, Mulder is a top criminal profiler who can get inside the twisted heads of the criminally insane and Scully, perhaps because of an empathy due to her her diminutive size, exhibits an obsession with protecting the powerless.

“Unruhe” is also a particularly well done episode on a technical level. The Vince Gillgan script takes a story we have generally seen before--woman kidnapped and brutalized, Scully becoming emotionally involved, Scully kidnapped herself--and turns several incidents in the polar opposite direction of what we expect. It is a good thing, too. I have lost count of how many times scully has been put in peril, but this is at least the seventh or eighth time she has been taken captive. At least she is not playing the complete victim in most. She even rescued Mulder in the previous episode. Kudos to the directing, as well. Considering much of the episode is from the perspective of a schizophrenic rapidly losing control, the weird camera angles and demonic imagery is perfect.

A woman is kidnapped from outside a drugstore while her boyfriend is murdered with an ice pick behind the ear. The only clue left behind is a passport photo the woman took minutes before which depicts her, surrounded by demons, screaming. Mulder believes the photo is a psychic imprint of the killer’s fantasy. Photos are left in four other instances, each of which prtedict the fate of the person in the photo. No explanation is really given for this, but it is incidental to the psychological thriller the story is.

The killer, Gerry Schnauz, is a former mental patient who kidnaps women and performs ice pick lobotomies on them because he fears the “Howlers” in his own head are controlling them. In his mind, he is helping them. The passport photo girl survives, but is near catatonic with brain damage. The agents are in a race against time to save a secretary who has just been kidnapped while they were investigating the first. They catch the guy through a combination of photo manipulation and shoe leather detective work.

Scully is the central agent in “Unruhe.” we are not far into the first sact before realizing she is going to wind up kidnapped as a potential victim. Her emotions over the lobotomized woman are clearly getting the best of her, so when Mulder heads back to Washington for the FBI crime lab and leaves her behind in Michigan to pursue a theory a construction company is a central factor in both kidnappings, we know she is on the right track, but it is going to cost her. It ilmost does, as she is alone with the guy we already know is the killer, yet she captures him with relative ease.

But not before the second woman is found dead from a botched lobotomy. Scully takes blowing it hard, but has little time to wallow as Schauz escapes from police custody and kidnaps her. It is an interesting point that as he has her duct taped to a dental chair ready to perform ‘surgery,” he explains she has a Howler that must be killed. We do not know it yet, but Scully does have a brain tumor caused by her abduction. Is Schauz’s comment a subtle reference to that? I think so.

Mulder rescues her in the nick of time by figuring out from Schnauz’s past that he is hiding out near his father’s grave. Evidently, his father had something done to his also mentally ill sister, which prompts his need to “save” women. A photo Schnauz too of himself before nearly jamming thre ice pick in Scully’s left eye--*shudder*--predicted his own death by Mulder’s gun.

“Unruhe” is a tight psychological thriller. While never fully explained, the photographic insight into Schnauz’s tormented mind are effectively terrifying. He makes a good, monster of the week villain. Admittedly, the scully in peril meme has already been done in about as many conceivable ways as possible, but its appearance yet again is not a detriment. One gripe: she is duct taped hand and foot to a dentist’s chair. When Mulder frees her hands, she stands up and walks off as though their was no tape around her ankles. That is an element they should hasve gotten right. But no biggie. “Unruhe” is quite good in spite.

Rating: *** (out of 5)