X-Files - Agua Mala

From Blogger Pictures

“If the sea is where life began, where our ancestor’s first walked ashore, then who’s to say what new life may be developing in its uncharted depths?”

            - Fox Mulder “Agua Mala” (1998)

No other X-Files episode has scared me so much then the episode from the 6^th season known as ‘Agua Mala,’ which is ‘Bad Water’ translated from Spanish. But I think the question on everybody’s mind is why am I doing a response to this episode out of all the horror movies that I have seen lately? Well, that’s because ‘The X-Files” was my foundation of horror and this episode had a huge 2 year impact on me.

This episode depicts Mulder and Skully fighting a sea monster in an apartment building in Florida during a hurricane along with the other tenants. The only thing is, this tenticly sea monster can only survive in salt water and is the embodiment of the water itself. When I was 8 I remembered the opening scene when the kid had neon colored tentacles wrapped around his neck so well that I would refuse to take any bath or shower for 2 years because of my hydrophobia. Nothing has ever scared me so much in my life.

From Blogger Pictures

I’ve done some research and from what other X-Philes have said about this movie is that the humor aspect of it overshadows the horror and that the ending was a bit rushed. Looking back on it, yeah, the ending was a bit rushed but the humor was fine.

What I want to elaborate on is the horror aspect of this episode and how ‘The X-Files,’ though more of a sci-fi is heavily, heavily influenced by horror. This episode frightened me to death and I will always remember that scene but but that’s what I wanted to address is the sheer terror of ‘The X-Files’ and how it molded me into the person that I am today and how this episode impacted my life. This is not a review or a critique but rather a trip down memory lane for me.

The ocean has always frightened me because of how deep it is and how the Himalayan mountains can literally be swallowed up by it’s depths. When I imagine all the sea creatures and all the things that could be down there it’s haunting and terrifying to know that there are things down there that are larger then us and things down there that have not been discovered. What awaits us down there? What would eventually surface?