Is There a New ‘X-Files’ Movie on Streaming? Not Exactly
Is There a New ‘X-Files’ Movie on Streaming? Not Exactly
Matt Singer Thu, August 13, 2026 at 3:29 PM UTC
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Hulu’s big new release this week is a new X-Filesmovie — or at least a new cut of an old X-Files movie.
Officially titled The X–Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn, Disney is billing the film as “Chris Carter’s highly anticipated director’s cut” of the 2008 movie The X–Files: I Want to Believe. The press release also claims “this R-rated version represents the film Chris always envisioned — a darker, frightening thriller exploring a real-life Dr. Frankenstein” and that the new version “gives fans a chance to experience a side of the film that has never been seen before.”
So just how different is it? Is it really darker and more frightening? If you’ve already seen the first cut do you need to go out of your way to see the Vrach Frankenshteyn version? If you disliked I Want to Believe, is there a chance you might like Vrach Frankenshteyn? Here’s what you .
What’s The X–Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn?
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The X-Files: I Want to Believe is the second X-Files movie, originally released in the summer of 2008. (The first, simply called The X-Files, premiered between the fifth and sixth seasons of the television series in 1998.) Where the earlier movie expanded and advanced the TV show’s overarching conspiracy mythology, the sequel was more in the vein of The X-Files’ “Monster of the Week” episodes, where Carter and his team put aside their continuing mysteries surrounding aliens, black oil, and the nefarious Cigarette Smoking Man, while Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigated a strange, paranormal case.
In I Want to Believe, which takes place several years after the show’s original series finale, the X-Files have been closed but the FBI brings Scully and Mulder back into the fold to help locate a missing agent. Here is the film’s official synopsis:
When a group of women is mysteriously abducted, it becomes a case right out of The X-Files. Years after walking away from the FBI, Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully are pulled back from the shadows when a federal agent vanishes without a trace. In a case you’d never see on TV, their only lead is a disgraced, defrocked priest claiming to have horrific psychic visions of the crime. Forced to confront the ghosts of their past, the partners must navigate a chilling winter landscape and an even darker human monstrosity. The truth of these crimes is out there somewhere … and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it.
For a time, The X-Files: I Want to Believe was the unofficial conclusion of The X-Files mythology. Then Chris Carter brought the show back for two more seasons in 2016 and 2018, which added even more twists onto Mulder and Scully’s quest for the truth. Since then, the show has returned to hybernation, although Carter is open about his desire to make more episodes in the future.
Accoring to Carter, this director’s cut came about while he was talking to Steve Asbell at 20th Century Studios. “I asked if they’d ever considered doing a director’s cut of I Want to Believe,” he recently told The Hollywood Reporter. “He said, ‘No, but let’s talk about it.’”
Let’s talk about it became yes, which eventually became this director’s cut, with the added “Vrach Frankenshteyn” subtitle in reference to the fact that the abduction is connected to a modern-day mad scientist, a la Victor Frankenstein.
Why Did Chris Carter Want to Make an I Want to Believe Director’s Cut?
In that same interview with THR, Carter said he wanted to make the director’s cut because the version of I Want to Believe released to theaters was not the one he set out to make — namely “a scary X-Files movie.”
When Carter delivered his first cut to Fox, he told THR in that same interview, the studio’s reaction was “mild outrage that we had not delivered a PG-13 movie. It was a tense discussion, and we agreed to cut it down to the version that we’d apparently promised them.” The MPA wasn’t convinced by Carter’s first edit, and demanded even more trims. (“What’s ironic is that the PG-13 standards for a movie were less permissive than the standards and practices for a television show at the time,” Carter added.)
As a result, Carter said, “the movie became a relationship heavy movie. The scares were second to that. I wanted to go back and put in the scares.”
How Is Vrach Frankenshteyn Different From I Want to Believe?
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I watched both the theatrical I Want to Believe (which is also streaming on Hulu) and Vrach Frankenshteyn over a 24-hour period and compare them. The new cut reflects Carter’s intentions — although perhaps not quite how you might expect.
Yes, there are some additional scares and a bit more blood in Vrach Frankenshteyn as compared to I Want to Believe. The death of one major character, for example, is presented in gorier and more graphic fashion in the “R-Rated Director’s Cut” than the theatrical version. (I put R-rated in air quotes because I cannot find any evidence of Vrach Frankenshteynactually receiving an R on the MPA’s film rating website.)
But the most noticeable changes to the film are subtractions rather than additions. The theatrical I Want to Believe runs 104 minutes. Vrach Frankenshteyn is just 98-minutes long.
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Carter did say that the original editing process turned X-Files: I Want to Believe into a “relationship heavy movie” instead of the more horrifying vision he planned. And it appears that the primary way he rectified that discrepancy was by trimming back scenes involving Mulder and Scully’s romance.
For example, I Want to Believe contains a long scene where Mulder and Scully are shown sleeping together — or at least lying awake in bed together. Scully, who’s returned to a career in medicine after her time at the FBI, can’t sleep because she’s thinking about one of her patients, a young boy with a life-threatening illness. The priests who run Scully’s hospital think the boy is beyond saving. Scully believes there is still hope.
The scene begins with the former partners flirting (“I can’t sleep.” “Actually, I have a little something for that.” “Just a little something?” “Thank you.”) before the conversation turns to Scully’s patient. Then they discuss William, Mulder and Scully’s son who was given up for adoption.
Scully then jokingly complains about Mulder’s beard, then remembers something she read in the abduction case files about animal tranquilizers, which puzzles Mulder. Now he can’t sleep, and as he talks through the case, he walks to the bathroom and begins shaving his beard. The phone rings, and the duo receive an update about a new development in the disappearance. In Vrach Frankenshteyn, all of the sexual innuendo and discussion of William is gone; the scene now begins with the moment Scully remembers the animal tranquilizer evidence.
Similarly, Carter also removed the film’s climactic kiss between Duchovny and Anderson. After Mulder and Scully crack the missing FBI agent case, the pair have a final heart-to-heart talk about what they have learned and whether Scully should proceed with her treatment plan for that young patient. Mulder tells Scully to follow her gut, but also promises if she wants, he will leave with her at a moment’s notice. They agree that wherever they go “the darkness” will follow them. To which Mulder replies “but let it try” and then pulls Scully in for a passionate smooch.
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Vrach Frankenshteyn keeps the scene, but ditches every trace of the kiss. (Rude.)
Other notable omissions include a discussion between Mulder and a disgraced priest Father Joe (Billy Connolly) about his time working the X-Files (“I once investigated a series of cases involving unexplained phenomena”), and a brief mention of his missing sister and how it motivated his career in the FBI.
Carter also cut out I Want to Believe’s single best joke: When Mulder and Scully return to the FBI for the first time, they’re instructed to wait outside a conference room where they will receive a briefing about the missing agent. They glance over and notice two photographs on the wall: President George W. Bush and original FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. As the camera pans over to consider the photos, the famous X-Files theme music plays.
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Vrach Frankenshteyn keeps the scene where the pair enter the FBI office, and the pictures are still hanging in the hallway if you know where to look for them. But the moment where Mulder and Scully look at them and contemplate their meaning while the X-Files theme plays is gone.
Do You Need to Watch Vrach Frankenshteyn?
I’ll be honest: Given the amount of publicity Disney’s throwing at Vrach Frankenshteyn, I expected it to be a drastically different cut. They promised a darker film with R-rated violence. They gave it a whole new title for crying out loud.
In practice, it’s kind of much ado about nothing. The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn **is not *lade Runner: The Final Cut*or *ichael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate*or Zack Snyder’s Justice League, movies that were radically reshaped into wholly new works in the editing room. Only the most die-hard *-Files *tan (or a weirdo with way too much time on his hands who watches both versions back-to back like, uh, me) would notice most of the changes.
True, Carter amped up the scares a little. But I’m not sure why he also felt the need to minimize the Mulder and Scully scenes at the same time. The vibe I got was that the people who made I Want to Believe felt it would be the franchise’s farewell, and they wanted to give fans what they wanted by allowing the characters finally make good on their will-they-won’t-they chemistry. But a few years later, The X-Files got two more seasons, and Chris Carter still wants to make at least one more season, and that doesn’t mesh all that well with the “happy ending” I Want To Believe gave to Mulder and Scully.
Unfortunately, most of the best stuff in I Want to Believeis Mulder and Scully’s relationship, and the terrific chemistry between Duchovy and Anderson. The film opens strong, and the notion of a monstrous former priest and the mystery surrounding his possible visions suits the movie’s themes about faith and belief.
But the film’s scary elements are actually its most generic and least compelling part; they would have worked as a “Monster of the Week” episode but they feel like a flimsy excuse for a feature film. Trimming out Mulder and Scully’s romantic moments for the sake of making a forgettable mad scientist plot a little bit more intense is a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face — or, in this case, amputating a limb to spite the person trying to prolong human life through barbaric experimental surgery.
It just doesn’t make much sense, but that’s the whole story here. Perhaps there are larger forces at work behind the scenes of Vrach Frankenshteyn than we could ever possibly understand. I want to believe the truth is out there.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
