The X-Files
Title: The X-Files
Created by: Chris Carter
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror, Mystery
Episode: “The Călușari” - Season 2, Episode 21
Directed by: Mike Vejar
Written by: Sara Charno
Original Air Date: April 14, 1995
Characters: Golda, Maggie Holvey, The Călușari
Setting: Murray, Virginia
Keywords: Blood magic, Superstition, Secret Society, Demonic possession, Exorcism
Synopsis:
The X-Files is an American television series centered around FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who investigate cases involving paranormal occurrences, the eponymous "X-Files."
Analysis:
In the forty-fifth episode of this highly popular Sci-Fi series, the strange and unexplained phenomenon that Scully and Mulder are up against turns out to be...Romanian culture. Or at least some oversimplified version of it.The episode opens with the day out of a seemingly ordinary American family, which is revealed as anything but that when the killing of the youngest child takes place. The investigation lead by the two FBI agents into the family’s affairs turns out more than one eyebrow-raising issue: the possible devil-possession of the first-born son, a superstitious grandma dabbling in the occult, and a coven of foreign men practicing strange rituals: the Călușari.
The figure of the grandmother, known only as Golda, in some way dominates the episode, since she has several spoken interventions, most of them in untranslated Romanian, which might seem a strange choice for an American series, but works to reinforce the central idea of the mysterious culture of the Romanians.
Even her son-in-law describes her as a woman ruled by superstition, saying that: “she’ll spit if anyone compliments the kids...she poured hot water over the threshold to ward off demons…tied red strings around the kids’ wrists.” She is never allowed to give a justification for her odd behavior, other than believing her daughter married the devil, and as a consequence, she had a “devil child”. In the end, Golda is vindicated by the revelation that her fears were not unfounded: the child was in fact connected to the spirit of his unborn twin.
