The best X-Files sequence episode exists thanks to a fake urban legend

By Chris Snellgrove
| Announce 26 seconds ago

One of the more charming things about The X-Files How often the classical urban legends show transformed into truly horrific TV episodes. For example, the show has an episode about the Jersey Devil, who gave fans a real thrill of this particular cryptid. But in a spin worthy of the show on her main, one of her best episodes was created, “Tooms,” thanks to the writer wanting to make her own urban legend for a monster in escalator.

How did “Tooms” create a legend

Early days The X-Files They were largely shaped by Glen Morgan and James Wong, a writing team that brought us some of the show’s eerie buzz. “Tooms” was a chapter that brought back the title villain, a kind of extended monster man previously presented in the episode “Squeeze.” And “Tooms” has a strange unforgettable highlight inspired by the time Morgan was doing some Christmas shopping at a center in Los Angeles and seeing open escalator, making him think about how scary that a bespoke urban myth for a monster inside the escalator might be.

Those who have seen “Tooms” know that the show helped bring its own urban myth to live in the grossest way possible. At the highlight of this episode, Mulder and Scully trying to track the Tooms of Eugene in his old direction only to find out that a center was built there and that the monster man has disappeared inside mobile steps. When Mulder goes inside, he finds a gooey environment suitable for the queen of Alien; He is attacked by bare, bare -covered tooms and eventually sends the villain by turning the escalator, dragging Tooms to death in his inner work.

If you know a lot about urban legends, you’ve already guessed that The X-Files Basically mixed in an old one when creating a new one. Long before “Tooms” was written, there were urban legends about how dangerous escalals can be and how easy it is for someone, especially children, to be caught in them and hurt or kill (which is why the memorable piece in Goods Where Jason Lee’s character continues to scream for a child’s repetitive and dangerous escalator rides). Essentially, tooms are killed by moving stairs fulfilling the classic myth, but Glen Morgan added something new to the urban mythology with the idea of ​​a monster man who lives under the escalator.

It is arguably, “Tooms” perfects the trope of the series of giving a new spin on old urban legends. The “Jersey Devil” episode above, for example, explores the idea that one woman might be the title monster before being revealed to be something much more common. In the meantime, “El Mundo Gira,” focuses on the legend of the Chupacabra, the Mexican-Subse goat who, in this story, may be aliens or not. Speaking of aliens, the show regularly deals with urban legends about “green little men” and has changed from portraying these visitors from outer space like small gray men to vicious monsters out of horror film.

At the end of the day, “Tooms” would have been memorable even excluding urban legends, thanks to the title villain. But the escalator really makes an exciting ending, and Glen Morgan achieved his goal of unlocking new fears in audiences. Now, every time we drive by an abandoned center, we can’t help but wonder how many hungry atrocities can be hidden inside, all thanks to an hour of absolutely crazy TV from the 90s.