Filmmaking at an industrial scale is an art form in and of itself. Not only do directors have to deal with the traditional challenges of telling a compelling story through a collaborative visual medium, but they also have to balance corporate interests, which affect the livelihood of everyone involved with the project. That’s why so many of these massive productions end up looking completely different from what the artists behind them had originally envisioned, as the variables created by Hollywood excess can often be unpredictable.
Thankfully, some filmmakers are occasionally gifted with a rare opportunity to revisit their old projects and rework them into something more akin to what had originally been planned. The rise of popular Director’s and Extended Cuts has actually rescued plenty of genre movies from cultural obscurity, with notable examples being Exorcist III: Legion and even Nightbreed. With that in mind, it makes sense that fans were ecstatic when it was announced that Chris Carter was finally going back to his divisive 2008 film The X-Files: I Want to Believe in order to deliver a new cut of the movie that didn’t have to appease concerned shareholders who insisted on neutering the original release.
Now called The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn, Carter’s reworking of the movie restores several deleted scenes and moments of additional gore/terror that were originally cut in order to guarantee a more profitable PG-13 rating. In Carter’s words, this makes Vrach Frankenshteyn the definitive version of the picture he always wanted to make, and, based on the trailer, fans have been hoping that this new cut might finally redeem a movie that had originally been regarded as a major disappointment.
The truth, however, is a lot more nuanced than the marketing would have you believe. While Vrach Frankenshteyn is an undeniable improvement over the original cut of the film, feeling more appropriately terrifying in its speculative influences and even adding never-before-seen practical effects work into some of the freakier moments, this new version of the movie likely won’t be converting folks who weren’t already fans of the 2008 release.
In the film, we once again follow former Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they’re recruited by the FBI in order to investigate the bizarre disappearance of a fellow operative. Aided by a disgraced priest with alleged psychic abilities (Billy Connolly), the duo soon find themselves falling down a rabbit hole of monstrous science and corrupted faith.
Despite the flick’s unfortunate reputation, I’ve always been of the opinion that much of the negative reaction to the picture had more to do with fan expectations regarding unresolved plot points from the show (mainly the convoluted web of alien conspiracies) than the overall quality of the movie itself. To put it bluntly, folks wanted another bombastic blockbuster like 1998’s Fight the Future, but what they got was decidedly less grandiose.
Even at its worst, I Want to Believe has always been at least “serviceable,” functioning like a spookier-than-usual FBI procedural drenched in a cool, snowy atmosphere. At its best, however, the movie reminds us that Carter has always been a skilled storyteller, with even his monster-of-the-week yarns simultaneously working as character studies testing the limits of Mulder and Scully’s personal beliefs – not to mention their iconic relationship.
All of that remains true in Vrach Frankenshteyn, with the film still feeling like a more polished version of a satisfying standalone episode of the show, but with the added material hinting at a greater madness lurking behind the antagonist’s plans. Things get especially interesting whenever the story is allowed to delve into the disturbing implications behind this otherwise grounded mystery, as well as the real-world experiments that inspired the titular Frankenshteyn.
Unfortunately, there simply isn’t enough new material to shine a light on what is by far the most interesting part of the movie. The added snippets of the antagonist’s animal testing and the overall body horror of his attempted transplants are appreciated, but it’s clear that, studio meddling or not, Carter never intended for this to be an all-out horror flick despite the villain’s Mary Shelley-inspired M.O.
There are also a handful of seemingly arbitrary changes that don’t really make the experience better or worse. While I appreciate the more fast-paced editing during some sequences, especially towards the beginning, the removal of gags like the hilarious nod to George Bush, which I always understood to be a reference to 9/11, actually makes the movie feel a bit too self-serious for its own good.
Thankfully, the experience is still carried by a trio of iconic performances, and I am definitely including Connolly’s highly controversial priest among them. There’s no point in praising Duchovny and Anderson for their onscreen chemistry, as the continued existence of this long-running franchise is itself a testament to their combined talents, but I’ve always thought that the fan vitriol towards Father Joe was absurdly overblown. Carter is obviously using the character to dissect the very idea of redemption and black-and-white morality in a world warped by continued cycles of violence, and Connolly’s portrayal of a regretful monster remains a bold and undeniably interesting move nearly two decades later.
At the end of the day, The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn likely won’t change your mind if you already disliked the original version of the film. However, existing fans of the movie finally have a definitive version of the experience that feels more in line with the show that gave us horrific episodes like season 4’s Home.
Just don’t go into this one expecting a brand-new mystery – though we can always hope that, if enough people watch it, we may yet see that long-awaited third movie…
The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn begins streaming on Hulu & Disney+ on August 14, 2026.
