10 Scariest X-Files Episodes Of All Time

3. Grotesque - Season 3, Episode 14

The cold open of Grotesque sets the tone for the rest of the episode. At a live drawing a man is erratically drawing not the male nude model, but a gargoyle creature. Whilst sharpening his pencil he cuts himself and smears the blood on the picture. Later, he offs the model outside of the building. Or does he?

The artist (who is found to have killed six more men) claims that he was possessed during the killings, that a gargoyle made him do it. Mulder and Scully go to the man's studio where they find hidden gargoyle statues with, you guessed it, bodies hidden inside of them. As the episode wears on Mulder gets more and more drawn in by the case and his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic: he spends hours studying gargoyles in the library, begins to draw pictures himself and even sculpts his own gargoyle statue in the now-abandoned studio.

It's a very psychological and dark episode of the show, one that contains one or two really scary bits which are highlighted by some truly fantastic camera work and lighting. Unlike any other episode in the show's history. A surprisingly twisted episode, this one is vastly underrated.