Almost two decades after the theatrical release of the second X-Files movie, I Want to Believe, an R-rated director's cut is heading to Hulu on August 14.
Titled The X-Files: I Want to Believe — Vrach Frankenshteyn (Russian for “Victor Frankenstein”), this version of the film is much closer to the full-on horror movie director Chris Carter originally wanted to make.
I Want To Believe was released six years after The X-Files TV series concluded, reuniting David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, as the former partners are pulled back together to investigate the disappearance of several women after a disgraced Catholic priest claims to be experiencing psychic visions connected to the case.
The movie was a critical and commercial failure
“We set out to make a real-life Frankenstein movie, and due to a variety of factors, our Frankenstein never completely left the operating room,” Carter tells EW. “A chance to apply the electrodes again was a special thrill.”
“I made it too scary, and I was told so by the brass at Fox, and they wanted a PG-13 movie,” Carter added. “Now I have a chance to go back and make the scary movie that I always intended ... It’s not just doing a director’s cut to do a director’s cut. It’s really kind of bringing to life something that for me was on the page and never got to the screen.”
The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), retired FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully are pulled back into service to track down a missing federal agent in a snowy, chilling landscape. Their only lead comes from Father Joe, a disgraced, defrocked priest who claims to experience graphic psychic visions of the abductions, leading the duo into a dark human trafficking and medical horror conspiracy.
The movie also stars Amanda Peet as Special Agent in Charge Dakota Whitney, Billy Connolly as Joseph "Father Joe" Crissman, Alvin 'Xzibit' Joiner as Special Agent Mosley, Mitch Pileggi as Assistant Director Walter Skinner, Callum Keith Rennie as Janke Dacyshyn, Adam Godley as Father Ybarra, Xantha Radley as Special Agent Monica Bannan, Fagin Woodcock as Franz Tomczeszyn, Nicki Aycox as Cheryl Cunningham, and Alex Diakun as Gaunt Man.