7 Most Terrifying Villains in The X‑Files, Ranked

Chris Carter’s hit television series The X‑Files built a massive audience of fans who tuned in every week to see stories packed with tension, horror, and the uncanny. While the show is most closely associated with aliens and government conspiracies, the monster of the week episodes were where the writers were truly allowed to experiment with unique and terrifying ideas that often chilled viewers to the bone. Here are the seven most terrifying villains, ranked from scary to absolutely frightening.

Videos by ComicBook.com

7. John Lee Roche (“Paper Hearts”)

John Lee Roche is a serial killer played by Tom Noonan in the episode “Paper Hearts”(S4E10). He’s not supernatural in any way; instead, he’s a living embodiment of the evil humans can commit. Roche goes on a mission to toy with David Duchovny’s Mulder, giving him clues to suggest that he may have been responsible for the kidnapping of his sister decades prior. Having previously been convinced that his sister was the subject of an alien abduction, Roche is manipulative enough to sow just enough doubt in Mulder’s mind to make him wonder.

The scares that come from Roche here are entirely psychological, as it’s genuinely undertaking to watch someone so cold with such a distinct lack of emotion or empathy with others, especially as he’s taking advantage of the series’ main hero. Roche turns a popular television trope of a scary, Zodiac-like serial killer into a very real mental nightmare, with a performance that is simultaneously horrific and normal at the same time. To this day, many fans still credit him as one of the show’s most unsettling human villains, and for good reason.

6. Luther Lee Boggs (“Beyond the Sea”)

Award-nominated actor (and voice of the iconic horror doll Chucky) Brad Dourif portrays Luther Lee Boggs in the first season of The X-Files. He’s a prison inmate on Death Row who claims to have psychic powers and begins to manipulate Scully in the aftermath of the death of her father. Once again, the horror from Boggs is more psychological.

He isn’t a harrowing-looking monster; he’s completely human. However, he’s so cold and calculated that he’s playing with the mind of Scully, teasing her with grief and hope, claiming to channel Scully’s deceased father. Dourif plays a huge part in the success of this character, too, as he goes from eerie gentleness and calmness to full-blown manipulation in seconds. There’s no violence or gore here, but it’s another episode that highlights that some of the worst monsters are indeed human beings.

5. The Flukeman (“The Host”)

The Flukeman is the center of one of the grossest episodes of the entire series in the best way possible. The story follows a mutated sewer-dwelling creature that has the eyes of a slug, a fluke-like mouth, and drags its victims down below with a sudden burst of impossible strength. The design of this creature goes a long way to making him one of the best villains on The X-Files, with biology-defying joints, slimy flesh, and mouth suction rings.

The terror here comes in part from the way in which his victims are always in tight spaces when they meet their end, which plays on the audience’s innate claustrophobia and makes the story even more immersive. The being eventually escapes at the end of the episode, leaving viewers with a haunting realization: something terrifyingly inhuman is still out there in the sewers, and who knows where he’ll appear next.

4. The Peacock Family (“Home”)

One of the most controversial episodes of the show, Home (S4E2) aired just once on Fox before being shelved due to call-in complaints from disturbed viewers. The episode follows the Peacock brothers and their mother, an inbreeding family akin to something seen in Deliverance or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is a true folk horror story, with incest, disfigurement, and religious perversion, with countless unforgettable moments. Arguably, the most infamous is when the limbless Peacock mother is found under the bed, and displays a chilling devotion to her sons despite the killing spree they go on. Worst of all, this episode turns suburbia on its head, showing how a quiet town can quickly turn into a nightmare.

3. The Twins (“Eve”)

In Eve (S1E11), a pair of cloned twins labeled as Eve 9 and Eve 10 is the result of a genetic experiment years prior. However, as Mulder and Scully soon discover, these girls aren’t the innocent children they portray themselves as, and instead are super-strong, unempathetic, and equipped with lethal capabilities. They look like normal school-aged girls, but their synchronized movements and blank stares into the eyes of the FBI duo prove to be extremely unsettling. One of the girls even pushes a child into traffic, showing her innate cruelty and desire for violence that lurks beneath the surface. These Eves truly get under your skin, making them genuinely scary villains in the series.

2. Cecil L’Ively (“Fire”)

Cecil L’Ively, who appears in only the twelfth episode of the series, is a monster hidden in plain sight. Disguising himself as a gardener for a wealthy English family, he is capable of performing spontaneous human combustion and causing destruction by controlling fire. He watches gleefully as his victims burn to death, with his ultimate goal being the demise of the family he’s infiltrated. L’Ively has a soft and genteel demeanor, and one that is almost charming at times, even as viewers know what he’s up to. It’s this contrast between his polite exterior and violent uprising that makes L’Ively a classic villain in the series.

1. Eugene Tooms (“Squeeze” / “Tooms”)

At the top of the list is Eugene Victor Tooms. He’s the scariest figure to appear in The X‑Files, and is, at many times in his two appearances, pure nightmare fuel. Tooms is a killer that can stretch through vents, chimneys, and cracks, and lives by feeding off the livers of his victims. To top it off, he also has bile-yellow eyes that make him look even more unsettling. Fans and critics alike have often ranked Tooms, with his unnerving stillness, high on lists of the greatest villains in television history, and for good reason.