By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
One of the most charming things about X-Files How often has the program transformed classic urban myths into truly frightening television episodes. For example, the series has an episode on the Jersey Devil, which gave fans of this particular cryptide a real thrill. But in a twist worthy of the show at its peak, one of its best episodes, “Tooms”, was created thanks to the writer who wanted to make his own urban myth on a monster in a escalator.
How “tooms” created a myth
The first days of X-Files were widely shaped by Glen Morgan and James Wong, a writing team that brought us some of the most frightening chills in the series. “Tooms” was an episode that brought back the villain, a kind of extensible monster man who had previously been presented in the episode “Squeeze”. And “Tooms” has an unforgettably bizarre culminating point inspired by the moment when Morgan made Christmas shopping in a Los Angeles shopping center and saw an exposed escalator, making him think of what point a tailor -made urban myth on a monster inside the escalator could be.
Those who have seen “tooms” know that the spectacle has helped give life to its own urban myth in the most coarse way possible. In the peak of this episode, Mulder and Scully try to follow Eugene Tooms at his old address to discover that a shopping center was built there and that the monster man had apparently disappeared inside a escalator. When Mulder enters inside, he finds a sticky environment adapted to the queen of Alien; It is attacked by a naked toom and covered with bile and, finally, sends the villain by lighting the escalator, causing tooms to death in its inner operation.
If you know a lot about urban legends, you have already guessed that X-Files Basically mixed in an old one while creating a new one. Long before the “tooms” were written, there were urban myths on how the mechanical stairs can be dangerous and how easy it is for someone, especially children, to be caught in them and to injure or kill (hence the memorable song in Goods Where the character of Jason Lee continues to shout on the repeated and risky escalator walks of a child). Tooms are killed by an escalator fully accomplishes the classical myth, but Glen Morgan added something new to urban mythology with the idea of a living monster under the escalator.
We can say that “Tooms” perfects the Trope of the series to put new laps on the ancient urban myths. The episode “Jersey Devil” aforementioned, for example, explores the idea that a woman can be the titular monster before revealing it to be something much more banal. “El Mundo Gira”, in the meantime, focuses on the myth of Chupacabra, the Mexican goat tube which, in this tale, may or may not be foreigners. Speaking of foreigners, the show constantly deals with urban legends of “Little Green Men” and alternated by depicting these visitors to space as a little gray guy to vicious monsters of a horror film.
In the end, the “tooms” would have been memorable even without the inclusion of urban myths, thanks to the villain of title. But the escalator really makes an exciting end, and Glen Morgan has achieved its goal of freeing new fears to the public. Now, each time we drive by an abandoned shopping center, we cannot help but ask ourselves how many hungry horrors can be hidden inside, all thanks to an hour of television from the 90s completely crazy.
