Any fan of The X-Files or Ligotti owes it to themselves to check it out. It was fun seeing the duo take a peak behind the curtain of reality (literally), and the entire story maintains a fine balance of cosmic horror and TV-style storytelling.
There are a number of truly creepy scenes here, as well as funny ones, and Ligotti has the main characters' mannerisms down pat. Something’s not right in this town, almost as if everything’s a performance being staged solely for Scully's and Mulder’s benefit. Mulder and Scully find clues that lead them to the small, run-down (and VERY strange) town of Crampton, Ohio. The basic gist is that a federal agent is gunned down inside FBI Headquarters, only the gun was a gag gun, and the culprit, once found and tackled inside the building, turns out to be a mannequin. Judged purely as a reading experience, however, it’s closer to a 4, imo.Īll the requisite Ligotti-isms are here: disintegrating town, encroaching unreality, clowns, puppets, dummies, etc., just streamlined for television. Too bad the makers of the show did not accept unsolicited scripts for fear of being accused of stealing ideas, as this is a 5-star screenplay (or teleplay, I suppose). Crampton most definitely would have been one of those, had it been filmed.
Judged purely as a reading ex I was never an overly huge fan of The X-Files, but I did watch it semi-regularly during its initial run, and there were a handful of episodes that were truly memorable, rising well above the typical scripted series of its time.
I was never an overly huge fan of The X-Files, but I did watch it semi-regularly during its initial run, and there were a handful of episodes that were truly memorable, rising well above the typical scripted series of its time.