Reviews
[Review] “The X-Files”: ‘Home Again’
A satisfying, disturbing ‘X-Files’ hits both the frightening and the familial in an episode that you shouldn’t even try to logically explain
“It’s not alive. It’s not dead.”
Oh, that episode of The X-Files where a homeless person’s thoughts manifest themselves into vengeful murderous trash? Yeah, I remember that one.
That very well might be the legacy that “Home Again” leaves behind. And that’s not a bad thing.
Officially past the halfway point now, this episode comes courtesy of Glen Morgan. Much like James Wong, Glen Morgan knows how to do horror, and the cold open for this episode is some classic slow burning dread. The stage is effectively set with the backdrop of relocating housing projects and the rolling progress of gentrification, but then before you know it you’re screaming at the legitimately terrifying stuff that’s happening on the screen. Much like what we saw with his brother last week, Morgan hasn’t lost his touch and seeing him tap into this heavy horror monster-of-the-week vein is deeply gratifying. If anyone checked out his promising-yet-cancelled Intruders, you got to see him flexing a bit of this muscle, but he really let’s loose here. The sequence set to Petula Clark’s “Downtown” or the final set piece with Landry are exercises in tension that show you how far Morgan has come. It really is a shame that he didn’t catch on as more of a horror feature director because the talent is obviously there. There are moments here where it feels like he’s intentionally trying to outdo and outgore his work in “Home” (if the title alone is any indication), and I’d say that he manages to pull it off…in fact he pulls both of them off, right from the torso.
Morgan’s directorial eye is also at display here, with a number of gorgeous shots and creative filming styles, like mounted cameras, adding some nice touches that amp up the atmosphere. There’s a particularly beautiful/gratuitous shot of Mulder and Scully’s flashlight beams (“Back in the day, is now.”) crossing and making an X as they descend into the unknown. It’s a very pretty episode to look at. Carter has gone on to say that this was the most expensive episode of the season to produce (which includes the crazy UFO and explosion special effects that went down in the premiere), but none of that money is that obvious (other than the ripping effect).
Once again, a very traditional sort of story sees itself being told here when a string of city officials are murdered in a way that defies all conventional logic. They’re murders that scream monster-of-the-week, and our intrepid FBI agents even acknowledge its on-its-sleeve-spookiness from the jump.
Morgan gets to push all of his favorite buttons here between inexplicable monsters, technology, and the big one—Scully’s family. I suppose it wouldn’t be a return to The X-Files without something horrible happening to one of Scully’s family members. Morgan effectively balances Scully opting out to deal with her ailing mother, while Mulder gets the opportunity to go “Full Mulder” here with a case that’s perfect for his limitless imagination. Not having Scully as the usual sounding board is exactly what he needs for these unexplainable murders. Also, for those that have been hungry for that snarky, sardonic Mulder, “Home Again” is going to make you happy. There are tons of instantly quotable one-liners at Mulder’s ready.
Scully delving back into her family life ends up seguing rather organically (which can be the case when pretty much every male in your family has the name “William”) into her woes of putting William up for adoption. Carter has spoken about how “Home Again” was originally slated to be the second episode of this revival, which means all of this William discussion here was meant to happen before what we saw in Wong’s “Founder’s Mutation.” This doesn’t change a lot, but it does show Scully dealing with this trauma alone, and unsure of herself, before she ultimately decides to push it further with Mulder, which we saw in the second episode. There’s heavier motivation to that action now. It’s got the weight of her mother’s last words, even. Those that have been looking for the entry of this season that gets to be the breakout Gillian Anderson vehicle where she gets to show what she’s capable of, look no further than “Home Again.” Anderson really kills it here, but Mulder’s pained looks at her as she compartmentalizes and forces herself back to work are equally devastating. And on the inverse, it’s nice to see that after thirteen years Bill Scully is just as much the asshole brother as he always was, too.
What I kind of love about this episode—and this isn’t necessarily saying that it’s a good thing—is the entry tying its monster to some ridiculous, unrelated concept. In this case: homeless people, graffiti, and tulku Buddhism. There are so many early X-Files that decide to throw in an element like some “Magical Homeless Man” and cryptic nomenclature like “The Band-Aid Nose Man” just to pad out the supernatural aspect that’s going on. Again, this might not be good writing per se (this honestly feels like Gilliam’s The Fisher King mixed with Guillermo Del Toro’s Mimic more than it should), but it distinctly feels X-Files-ian, and Morgan does a flawless job at harkening that tone. The idea of the collective plight of the homeless personifying itself into some horrible crusader doesn’t make any sense, but it fits, y’know? I mean, this whole thing is basically a big, fat parable for “People treat each other like trash”, but it somehow sells itself. The classic storytelling also only makes the horror of The Band-Aid Nose Man (or “Trash Man,” to each their own) hit all the harder when special effects and filmmaking have improved considerably since the show ended.
Watching the mystery of “Home Again” unspool is part of the fun, and as you begin to connect the dots between these disparate elements and figure out how this Trash Man can be neither living nor dead, the madness only becomes more entertaining. The end of this sees Mulder and Scully tag-teaming the monster and basically getting a big ramble of nonsense to explain it all. Like so many X-Files episodes, this one doesn’t try to explain the specifics, and Mulder and Scully really don’t do anything to stop this carnage. Everyone on the Trash Man’s kill list gets theirs, and then this monstrosity ceases to be. Frankly, I didn’t need an explanation and the episode’s decision to coast more on tone than logic worked for me just fine.
What didn’t exactly work for me however are the connections that the episode tries to make between the enlightened nature of the Trash Man, and Mulder and Scully’s child. There are a lot of superfluous flashbacks and attempts to tie things together that are treated like there’s a larger pattern at work, but there really isn’t. I suppose it’s fair to reason that Scully is incredibly emotionally fragile at this moment, so these leaps in vulnerability that she’s taking aren’t exactly out of character. The show has certainly made bolder claims in the past, but this still felt a little inorganic to me.
The episode’s final thoughts focus on an introspective, albeit overdue, moment between Scully and Mulder. The idea of turning Scully’s “quest” for William and plaguing her with these unanswerable questions as her own “Samantha Mulder” equivalent is an interesting move by the show (“I want to believe—I need to believe—that we didn’t treat him like trash.”). This episode very much sets up William to be Scully’s ultimate payoff in the same way that The Truth is Mulder’s, and I suppose I’m okay with that. It’s really the biggest piece of lingering mythology for the show to address, so it’s focus makes plenty of sense. Any symmetry is nice, and more than anything it seems like this path is taking us down to a William reunion either when the finale, or inevitable next movie, take place. Mulder, Scully, and William somehow ending up as one happy family wouldn’t be the worst ending for the show that I can think of. They’ve certainly ended the solitude at this point.
Until then, let’s all keep searching for the dark wizards in our lives.
It’s a day of the month ending in Y, and that means it’s time for another killer shark film. Why? Because they’re inexpensive to make, play into an easy fear, and keep finding audiences willing to give them a spin. The Bay is the latest entry in the shark attack subgenre, and while it’s noticeably better than last month’s Chum, it still struggles to barely stay afloat.
Emma (Francesca Eastwood) and Lani (Dani Oliveros) are best friends who’ve traveled to Thailand for a destination wedding, and a chance encounter at the buffet table leads to an unexpected adventure. Mandal (Alexander Wraith) is a friendly, knowledgeable transplant who connects with nature and makes a living by offering boat tours through the area’s scenic waterways. The trips culminate with the opportunity for tourists to witness a shark feeding with local tiger sharks. The tourists aren’t meant to be the food, obviously, but sometimes accidents happen.
The Bay checks off most of the subgenre’s expected beats – an attractive location, an iffy ensemble of characters, a series of poor choices – but it does a few things differently along the way. For one thing, while we see plenty of sharks in the build-up, the first attack doesn’t happen until past the film’s midpoint. Writer/director Phil Volken fills the time leading up to that attack with engaging enough character beats, some genuine suspense, and an abundance of dialogue about how sharks aren’t typically a threat to people – or threats like people. “Sharks hunt,” says Mandal, “humans kill.”
It’s a bit of foreshadowing, perhaps, but it’s also the film’s presiding theme. Sharks don’t want to hurt or kill humans, but “mistakes happen.” Mandal offers up numerous eco-friendly spiels about the role sharks play in the environment, how overhunting could lead to disaster, and how humans are the ones invading their territory. “Don’t act like prey,” and you won’t be bitten, eaten, digested, and shat out by a shark. Pretty simple, if you think about it.
Trouble starts when they toss a chunk of meat into the water attached to a chain and a large female tiger shark gets caught up in it. Mandal’s sidekick, a local man named Ruhan (Ta’imua), panics and starts stabbing at the thrashing creature. He has a history of being bitten by a shark and is clearly frightened, and as the situation worsens, he becomes a far more active threat to the others’ safety than the actual sharks. That character type is pretty common in these films, but it’s a curious choice to make the film’s sole indigenous member of the ensemble the morally weak link.
To be clear, Ta’imua is playing a local but isn’t actually Thai. He is, however, Hawaiian, and The Bay was filmed off Oahu, meaning he’s the only indigenous representation on both counts. The other three characters, all Americans, are brave and willing to risk their own safety for the group, leaving only Ruhan to put a face to the cruel, selfish humans mentioned earlier in the film. It’s certainly a choice!
His performance is somewhat stifled by the desire to make him seem menacing, but it’s passable. The others are equally okay as performers, but it’s only Oliveros’ Dani who stands apart as a spirited individual worthy of viewer fist pumps. Cinematographer Helge Gerull delivers some attractive landscape shots destined to make you consider a Hawaiian vacation, and composer Gad Emile Zeitune finds some effective aural backdrops for the film’s teasingly emotional moments.
Then there’s the sharks. A major drag on the subgenre these days is the use of cheap CG effects (including the abysmal use of A.I. in Chum), but The Bay sidesteps that problem for the most part. There are real sharks here, lots of them, but they appear to be solely present via stock footage edited into the film. Some CG is used here and there, too, with shots being comped together to tighten the proximity between humans and sharks. Most effective, arguably, are the practical effects used to create fins cutting through the water near the characters.
There’s a sense of grounded reality to the shark kills, and while they’re less showy, they’re weightier as a result. Wounded bodies drift away, and the moment where shark nibbles turn into ferocious feasting feels more inevitable and affecting than sudden or scary. The sole exception to the general quality of those kills is the film’s final shark encounter, which doubles down on the poor choices by pairing a silly CG beat with some poorly matched stock footage.
Pretty much every shark attack movie lives or dies on its presentation of the sharks themselves. There are exceptions, of course, with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws being chief among them – everything about that film, from the writing and acting to the directing and editing, helps make it a masterpiece despite the mechanical shark looking goofy as hell outside of the water – but The Bay isn’t Jaws. It’s not even Jaws: The Revenge. Its live sharks are mildly effective, though, and give it a subdued realism that will likely appeal to viewers averse to CG intrusions. Will that be enough to win them over, though?
“When you enter the ocean, you enter the food chain… and not necessarily at the top,” says an opening onscreen quote from Jacques Cousteau, and something similar could be said for shark attack movies in general. When you make one of these movies, you enter a well-trodden and densely populated subgenre… and you’re all but guaranteed to not be at or even near the top. The Bay is closer to the ocean floor than the water’s surface, and while that still puts it above the bulk of the genre, it’s probably not enough of a reason to step foot in these waters.
The Bay opens in theaters and on demand on July 17, 2026.
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