The Calusari ('MOW'): Message to New Parents: STAY AWAY!

There I was, finally getting a moment to myself. No child screaming or demanding food. No work to kill my enthusiasm. Nothing at all to worry about except the next X-Files installment I was going to watch. And then 'The Calusari' starts, an episode I hadn't seen in probably five or six years. I remember it had something to do with a balloon and dead chickens. . .that was all I remembered. And as the episode played out. . .there was the balloon. It was all kind of silly really. A balloon leads a kid around while scary music plays.



But what I thought would be another mediocre episode with a goofy premise ended up being probably the most horrid thing I've seen in my young parenting life. The balloon, which we later learn was being pulled by an invisible evil twin of the baby whose following the balloon's older brother, leads the baby onto a train track and the train thus runs over the child. Yeah, that's cute.

Needless to say, I was stressed out for the rest of the episode. . .and for good reason. 'The Calusari' is a solid scarefest and when I say it is horrid I don't mean it was of poor quality. In fact, the horror is so authentic that I found myself mystified as to how on God's green earth this made it on the airwaves in primetime. If you know me then you know what scares me. But if you don't, here is what does: strange eyes and freaky children.

So not only does 'The Calusari' depict a young child (roughly one or one and a half, like my daughter) but it also features an evil, ambivalent older sibling who tries to stab his mother and grows strange teeth and growls a lot while walls bleed mucus or something. I don't like these things yet they exist in a program I consider to be my all-time favorite show ever. Why do the things I love have to torture me so!!!!!



'The Calusari' is mostly successful because it sets itself up as being pretty retarded at times and manages to take these retarded things and make them scary. Weird Amish-looking immigrants doing Romanian chants sounds stupid and it usually is in the wrong hands. . .but here it is a little eerie. And the final scene in which an exorcism is performed, in which a bed raises in the air and a child growls with crazy teeth, sounds like poor drama but is absolutely haunting. All hail the X-Files. . .for scaring me stupid!