Chris Carter tells HTG why he's finally releasing his horror cut of The X-Files: I Want to Believe

In 2008, you might think Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files, had full autonomy to write and direct The X-Files: I Want to Believe, a feature film based on the hit show. The X-Files was a cultural phenomenon that ran for nine seasons before 2008, so Carter certainly had more than enough evidence to show the studio that when it came to the property, he knew best. Unfortunately for Carter, 20th Century Fox and the MPAA (now MPA) pushed back against his vision, forcing him to cut many of the horror scenes to ensure a PG-13 rating. "What became clear to me is they really didn't know The X-Files," Carter explains to How-To Geek. "They were making a different movie than I was making." Nearly 20 years later, Carter is releasing his version of the movie on Hulu this month with a new title, The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn. The movie's plot still revolves around a missing-person case that requires the services of Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). However, Carter's director's cut restores several scenes he had previously removed that lean into the Frankenstein-inspired body horror. Below, Carter explains the reasoning behind releasing his new cut of the movie, his secret for identifying talent for the series, and what stories he would write if the show ever returned. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Chris Carter on the importance of embracing the darkness in The X-Files It's about finding the light HTG: There's a conversation that stuck out towards the end between Scully and Mulder. Scully is asking about going away from the darkness, and Mulder's like, I don't know if it really works that way. It's something that finds you. I look at that as not necessarily a bad thing. I think darkness can just be something we want to confront. It's a part of us. It's just something that's always there. This show has lived with you for over 30 years, and you always find a way back to it. I was wondering if The X-Files is your form of darkness, and how have you come to accept that over the years, no matter how far you've been removed from it? CARTER: Yeah, you know, it's funny, science is a kind of search in darkness for the light, for the questions, and so I think that is an apt metaphor. Mulder is always searching in the darkness because he's searching beyond science into science fiction, which is what interests Scully, anyway. While she is a foil for his beliefs, she is drawn into his passion and his search for the truth. I think maybe you can say in life, we have to go through the darkness to find the light. It's almost been 20 years since this movie hit theaters, and I always hear creatives talk; maybe they're writing a script or doing a project, [and] they step away. Then, years later, they have a different perspective on the material. You've had a lot of time to process this movie. When you were re-editing and re-cutting it, what was something you learned about the film now that you didn't know in 2008? There's something I forgot, and the thing that I forgot is how hard it was to make the movie. We shot it in a really, forbidding environment in the ice and snow, and when you're working and thinking constantly about how cold your feet are, it makes it that much harder. The production value in the movie, really, for me, going back in, it was like, wow, we made a beautiful movie. I just wanted to make it the beautiful, scary movie that I had always intended. Chris Carter wanted to make a scary movie, but the studio had other plans Several key scenes had to be removed When you were first editing the movie back then, when did you really first start to get blowback from the studio that maybe this is a little too scary? You know, thankfully, they left us alone. I think our first cut of the movie is what we originally intended, although there's something in there that I still felt, in going to do it again, that it needed special care. Long story short, we showed the executives the first cut of the movie, and they kind of freaked out, and they said, "This isn't a PG-13 movie." This is, as they put it, "torture porn," as if we had made one of the Saw movies or something." It's not torture porn, but we'll cut the movie back because we agreed to do a PG-13 movie, and you guys spent the money, and you guys, have to promote the movie, so we cut it back to satisfy them. The next cut we gave them satisfied their PG-13 demands. Anyway, then we had to give it to the people at the Motion Picture Association, and they looked at it, and they said, "This isn't a PG-13 movie," and we had to cut it back again. Those two big slices out of the movie, I felt, always, it wasn't the movie we originally intended it to be, so this was my attempt to make the movie what I intended it to be. Credit: 20th Century Fox That said, there's a Mulder and Scully relationship in the movie that is powerful, but I felt like because we had the two reboots in between the making of the movie and the director's cut, I thought we had had a lot of the Mulder-Scully relationship, and now maybe we can move past that in this movie. So I took some of that out, and I think it makes the movie more worthy of the Vrach Frankenshteyn title by making it just a good, scary movie. Totally agree. Forgive me for my ignorance here. It's just so baffling to me. Here you are, this proven creator with a gigantic hit for a network—200 episodes, the studio's churning a profit, and now they're questioning the creative decisions. Did you ever feel betrayed by the studio at this point? What became clear to me is they really didn't know The X-Files. They knew it was a hit. They were making a different movie than I was making. I think that's the long and short of it. Now that it's [Carter's cut] finally coming out, do you almost feel a sense of relief or vindication? Yeah, kind of. As I think all filmmakers and storytellers experience, you hope people respond to it. You hope people like it. You're on the edge of your seat trying to put people on the edge of their seat. So, that's where I am right now. Chris Carter reflects on the show's history before teasing the future Would Carter ever return for more stories? Credit: 20th Century Fox I always look at The X-Files as this great baseball team. You had so many writers, directors, and producers go on to, let's say, manage their own teams, or they went on to do other stuff. You clearly have a great eye for talent. Are there specific traits you're looking for when you're bringing someone on to work with? Let me see. A sense of humor really helps. The X-Files comedy episodes aside— the Darren Morgan episodes, the Vince Gilligan episodes that really work as dark, completely idiosyncratic comedies—Mulder and Scully are funny. Mulder is always making jokes. He's always ironic. He's always sarcastic, so you look for writers with a sense of humor. But you also look for writers who know the world of science fiction, horror, of all those things that we drew from. Sometimes you get lucky. Glen Morgan and James Wong came to me. It's almost like they were heaven-sent. They came and did some of the best episodes in the first season and beyond. They came to me through the guy who was the studio executive, Peter Roth. He had worked with him on Stephen Cannell shows, so they were kind of plopped in my lap, and the show was just so much better for it. If you were still writing episodes of The X-Files, is there a topic you would love to cover? It's funny, someone asked me about immortality today, and what I think about immortality. I said I love the idea of living forever. I said I'm not one of those people out there trying every wellness trick to try to live forever, although I try to live a healthy life. But I'm curious. Biblically, people lived for hundreds of years, so there are things in front of us which suggest a kind of relative immortality, and I'm fascinated by that idea. Are aliens immortal? If we were able to access alien technology and science, could we become immortal? All those things are of interest to me. If and when I bring my X-Files back to the screen, not Ryan Coogler's X-Files, but if I ever bring mine, I actually, set up in the last two reboots, that very idea. The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn streams on Hulu and Disney+ on August 14. Subscription with ads Yes, $10/month Live TV Yes, various plans available More to watch on streaming If you're looking for a new movie on streaming, Michael, one of the biggest hits of 2026, is finally on Starz. Plus, check out some of Netflix's top thrillers, including Den of Thieves and Don't Breathe.