Like a list of the 10 greatest rock songs of all time or the 10 best kebab shops in Islington, a list of the 10 best X-Files monsters is a subjective thing based on taste and memories and how much change happens to be in your pocket.

So while we must tip the hat to YesButNoButYes and their 10 Greatest X-Files Monsters, we must respectfully disagree with several of their choices and justifications and offer a different opinion.

That’s X-phile talk for ‘they’re wrong, we’re right, nya nya.’

The X-Files quite literally paved the way for some of the best narrative television today, and although few deny that it ran out of steam in its later seasons the first five or six still rank as some of the best stuff to come out of Vancouver before Battlestar Galactica. Part of the show’s charm was that it mixed its main story arc about alien invasion with regular ‘monster of the week’ episodes, one-offs that contained some scary something-or-other from various mythological sources. And here is our expert opinion about what the ten best of those monsters are.

We recommend reading this list on a Friday night, with a loved one, under a blanket, lights off. Because that’s how The X-Files is best enjoyed, how we fondly remember it. Because some of this stuff will still scare the shit out of you.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

10. Polly Turner and ‘Chinga’

The episode Chinga (changed to Bunghoney outside of America) was co-authored by best-selling horror writer Stephen King, and features many of his signature touches: a small town in Maine, a dysfunctional family, the repetition of various innocuous phrases that take on an increasingly sinister meaning. Polly Turner uses her doll Chinga to focus her growing supernatural powers – although the doll itself may be to blame for awakening Polly’s abilities. She cuts a murderous swathe across the small town where Scully is taking a much-needed holiday, while Mulder tries to help her out from afar (tossing pencils into the ceiling of his office, which would become an X-Files trope.) The recurring use of ‘the hokey pokey’ as Chinga and Polly commit their crimes will inevitably link the song to slaughter by evil children’s toys in even the most resolute of viewers.

9. The Peacock Family

Home is a classic episode known as much for its controversy as its content: the episode was only aired once on American television because of its (for the time) graphic content and incestuous relationships between the villains rankled Yankee senses that still had their nose out of joint for Murphy Brown having a child out of wedlock. (It has since been released on DVD and is in syndication.) The Peacock family live in the small town of Home, Pennsylvania, and have bred only with each other since the American Civil War – more than 150 years by the time the episode starts. When one of their babies dies and is discovered by some local children, Mulder and Scully are sent to investigate. What happens is a shoot-out in the best tradition of American splatter films of the 70s and early 80s – cops raid filthy hillbilly horror-den, bloodshed ensues. And the closing scene of the Peacock survivors getting away in their classic Cadillac is one of the best examples of the X-Files theme that evil can never truly be defeated.

8. The Survivors of Ponce de Leon’s expedition. AKA, the chameleon humanoids from Detour.

Here’s one YBNBY got right: even though the special effects are dated by today’s standards, a race of killer humans lurking in the Florida swampland (which looks suspiciously like the Pacific Northwest) is stone-cold terrifying, especially since the only hint that they’re after you is their piercing red eyes. Mulder and Scully barely make it out of this one alive: after they flee Scully’s hotel room at the end of the episode, a pair of those red eyes appears under Scully’s bed. They lurk in the forest and they enter your room. We dare you to watch this episode and not get the chills when you see their horrible, horrible red eyes… Pardon us while we go lock the door.

7. Darren Peter Oswald

It may be tempting to cheer for the video-game-playing nerd who calls lightning to electrocute his tormentors, the fact that he seems utterly without morals and fries whomever he happens to dislike is even more subtly horrifying. From the episode D.P.O, Darren (played by a young Giovanni Ribisi) is a sociopath in training, and imagining what someone with his ability could be like in ten years without Mulder and Scully to stop him ought to be enough to keep you awake at night. And playing Filter’s Hey Man, Nice Shot while he zaps his enemies is a nice touch.

6. Charlie Holvey

Maybe evil children just don’t sit well with us, but the opening scenes of the episode The Calusari – where a balloon acts of its own accord and leads a toddler onto the train tracks, where he is run over while his older brother Charlie looks on – are creepy in a way that few X-Files episodes recreate. Turns out Charlie is actually possessed by his dead evil twin (aren’t they all?) and the demon presence in him proceeds to attack and kill the family members protecting him. The Calusari are a Romanian cult who seem to understand how to exorcise the demon, but not before a lot more creepy shit goes down.

5. Big Blue

Props to YBNBY for this one as well. Big Blue is part Loch Ness Monster, part Champ, part Crocodile-In-The-Sewer, but it’s all monster and it’s the reason why swimming in lakes where you can’t see what’s coming is always a Very Bad Idea. The real Big Blue only makes an appearance at the very end, after the alligator that is responsible for a series of deaths (including the memorable demise of Scully’s dog) is put down by Mulder and the other agents.

4. Pincus

You always suspected there might be something off about your boss and your co-workers. And you know for a fact that your job is sapping your will to live. Pincus (from the episode Folie a Deux) is the boss you always feared: he’s actually some insectoid creature who can disguise himself as a human and feeds on people, turning them into mindless drone-like zombies. Sounds wacky? Sure, until you hear it chittering behind its office door, and your co-workers stare at you vacantly… and tell you the boss needs to see you now.

3. The Cigarette-Smoking Man

No, he’s not at the top of our list. Why? Because while he’s a heartless bastard who ends up crippled and dying alone by the end of the series, and he is a complete badass, he’s certainly not the stuff nightmares are made of. He may be worse, as he’s ‘real’ – the embodiment of a massive government conspiracy to keep people servile and ignorant, and to eventually turn the human race over to alien masters. But he does have a softer side: he always wanted to be an author. Isn’t that sweet?

2. The Alien Invaders

We’re grouping these as one monster because they do play such a major role in the show’s mythology. They’re coming to colonise earth, they use a sinister black oil to spread their DNA and enslave people, and they have sent a race of shapeshifting hybrids whose green blood is poisonous to help the conspiracy that aims to quietly give the planet over to them. Surely one or two of them could find nice government jobs and truly begin their reign of terror.

1. Eugene Victor Tooms

He’s immortal, he feeds on human livers, and he can contort his body to fit through tiny spaces like Mr. Fantastic turned evil. He’s also a serial killer. And rumour has it, he doesn’t like dogs. Eugene Victor Tooms is on the top of the list because he’s the iconic X-Files villain: mention the monster of the week and he inevitably pops to the top of people’s minds. He’s also one of the only monsters-of-the-week to appear more than once, and for good reason: if you have an already-scary monster, why create a new one? As far as serial killing monsters go, it doesn’t get worse that Tooms.

[story by Jason Mical]

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

What Chris is trying to say is that The X-Files: I Want To Believe, will not be the load of old tripe we’re expecting; this despite the reoccurring cast of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson apparently being past their pin-up days and Billy Connelly appearing on screen for more than five seconds.

The plot, for all the spindly details we shall divulge, revolves around Connelly’s Father Joe character, the two tarnished former FBI agents reuniting (in the sack!) and something excitingly weird going on in the snow. There’s kidnapping too, we’ll tell you that much.

Pity then that after eight, long years of not waiting and happily getting on with our lives, this X-Files re-boot is a bigger disappointment than parenthood. Except Ms Anderson – she still looks fine enough to spread on toast – but even she can’t save this mess. Everything appears to happen via staggering coincidence or ‘just because’. Carter’s motto must be ‘If in doubt, write it anyway’.

To call the movie an extended episode would be an insult to the memorable episodes out there. Remember how good Tombs, Nisei or The Host were? Yeah, well they’re nothing like I Want To Believe. The central (DON’T LOOK KIDS! SPOILER!) ‘body harvesting’ theme is interesting, yet skimmed over during the climax and never properly explained. Now, the show has made its bread and butter out of not explaining things, but rarely to the point of incoherence as it does here.

(SPOILER DO STOP NOW!)

On the plus side, there’s sexy Anderson again, a nifty pursuit through a deserted building and maybe one good scare every half hour. Ultimately though this film ends up like masturbation; enjoyable enough while it lasts, but in the grand scheme of things, a complete waste of time.

So it was always inevitable that an X-Files sequel would be on the cards. And it just so happens that one's coming out in a few months. But nobody has the foggiest clue about what it'll actually be about.

But that's where X-Files sequel director Chris Carter and screenwriter Frank Spotnitz come in. They've decided to spill the beans about the X-Files sequel without actually mentioning anything that's going to happen in it at all. Still interested? Yes? Well that's fairly depressing.

Once you've been in a show like X-Files, you're more or less promised geek adoration for life. While that can be a good thing – it means that you've got a guaranteed audience for your dire forays into sub-erotic trip-hop – it can also stop you from ever doing anything popular ever again.

Look at the two main stars of X-Files, for instance. Gillian Anderson went off to have a baby, develop an odd British accent and star in a film about pushing shotguns up people's bottoms, while David Duchovny now just spends his time annoying bad funk-rock bands. And they've tried to distance themselves from X-Files, either by making spoof sci-fi movies like Duchovny or just saying that they hated X-Files like Anderson.

But despite all that, a sequel to 1998's X-Files movie – you, know, the one about all the spooky bees – is coming out in July. But plot details for this X-Files sequel have been scant so far. Sure, there was the leaked X-Files sequel trailer, but that just convinced us that it was going to be a film about some spooky snow featuring a guest appearance from Billy Connolly as Father Christmas. And that can't be what it's about, can it? Can it?

Never fear, for the two creative brains behind the X-Files sequel Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz have decided to reveal all. Well, we say 'all'…

"While this is not a mythology movie, it's true to everything that's come before," Spotnitz said at the William S. Paley Television Festival. "It's true to Mulder and Scully, who they are and where they would be this point in their lives and all of the experiences that they've had."

So that's that all cleared up. Thanks for your time, Frank. No really. 

Alright, so we can appreciate that Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz want to keep plot details for the X-Files secret close to their chest, because once they finally reveal that it's just going to be two hours of the same old hokey shit that everyone got sick of at some point 13 years ago, then the movie's just not going to have the same pull, is it?

But still, it wouldn't hurt to tell us what the X-Files sequel is going to be called, would it? Unless it's actually going to be called X-Files 2: Look Out, Santa's Got A Spooky Banjo! then the title won't give too much away. So it's over to Chris Carter to make the big reveal:

"I can't tell you. I know what I want it to be, but Fox has some ideas of their own."

Wow, the X-Files sequel really is top secret, isn't it? Everyone's probably just hard at work coming up with a movie title that will get the biggest audience possible to pay to see it. And if that's the case, we've got just the right title for them that they can use free of charge.

Indiana Jones 4.

Read more:

`X-Files' Creator Spills Film Details – Reuters 

You see, it was recently announced that cult 90s sci-fi show The X Files would be making a comeback. Unlike the comebacks of Crowded House and East 17, many people actually pricked up their ears at this news. While some cinema-goers might just want to spend 90 minutes perving over Gillian Anderson, a lot of people may be going to find out the answer to long-forgotten questions like a) How much does the Smoking Man spend on ciggies everyday, and b) Will Mulder accidentally find out that his long-lost sister is actually living next door to him?

We’re not too sure about any of that, but we know of three people who could help unravel the mysteries. Billy Connolly, Amanda Peet and Xzibit. 

Yes, that’s right – the three most unlikely people have been cast in a film with a lot of expectation already upon its extra terrestrial shoulders.

We aren’t too sure what they are going to be doing, but if it’s got anything to do with how we know and love them at present, it’s not going to be too good. Billy Connolly is sure to be the bumbling sidekick who'll get the FBI agents into all sorts of wacky situations. Expect him to tell many a tale in situations when it’s not appropriate. For example, when the head of the alien mafia takes them all hostage with a gun to their heads, expect our Billy to bang on about how it reminds him of a similar story that happened to him in his native Glasgow. Only the alien was a pissed Glaswegian women threatening to glass him with a Smirnoff bottle.  

As Digital Spy reports: 

“Fox would not release details of the trio's roles, but Xzibit and Peet are rumoured to be playing FBI agents working with Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson).” 

Damn. Xzibit to play an FBI agent? Hecklerspray had hopes that he would have a cameo role where he’d take some sort of spacecraft to his pimp hut and get the thing a phat paint job with a sound system that could pump beats across the other side of the galaxy for Luke Skywalker to hear.

With Xzibit’s prior acting experience being the rubbish 8 Mile and Pimp My Ride where he parades around like a twat for half an hour, we are a bit uneasy why he was cast. Maybe all the other rappers were busy that day. But we do assume that 2Pac was up for the role, since he somehow release all those records from beyond the grave. Unless that’s what the film is about and they need a rapper to help solve the mystery. If not, there’s our screenplay right there. 

And Amanda Peet? Well, she’s just another piece of eye candy to stare at if the film gets boring. Everybody wins!

Read more:

Connolly To Appear In X-Files Movie - Digital Spy