The X-Files' New R-Rated Movie Earns Polarizing Rotten Tomatoes Score For Director's Cut

Cover Images Published Aug 22, 2026, 12:52 PM EDT Dan Zinski is a freelance scribe currently contributing to ScreenRant as a movie and TV news writer. He previously wrote for FanSided, The Viking Age and Lightly Buzzed. Sign in to your ScreenRant account Vrach Frankenshteyn is making a believer out of some critics, but not all. Chris Carter’s long-promised director’s cut of the mangled 2008 franchise film X-Files: I Want to Believe restores enough footage to boost the movie’s rating from the original PG-13 up to R, while somehow winding up with a shorter runtime than the theatrical cut. Now available to stream on Hulu and Disney+, this new version of the second X-Files movie, weirdly subtitled Vrach Frankenshteyn, may be a gorier experience than the 2008 cut, but there is divided opinion on whether it’s a more satisfying one. Critics are indeed split in their assessment of the 99-minute, R-rated version of X-Files: I Want to Believe, leading to a low Rotten Tomatoes score of just 40%. That number could go up or down, of course, as more reviews are compiled. Positive takes on the “Vrach Frankenshteyn” cut applaud director Carter for putting back in some of the material snipped out of the 2008 I Want to Believe theatrical cut in order to get its rating down to PG-13. The R-rated version is praised as an intelligent adult thriller that recalls the grittier conspiracy movies of the ‘70s. But even some of the more positive reviews can only give slight praise to the director’s cut changes, calling the new movie only slightly better than the original. Flat-out negative reviews deride X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn as not improving on the original cut at all, calling the reworking pointless. At least one review slams Carter’s effort by saying that the new cut makes the movie feel more than ever like a two-part X-Files episode posing as a feature film. Speaking to ScreenRant in an August 2026 interview, director Carter gave insight into what he was trying to accomplish by adding back in some of the extreme content removed from the I Want to Believe theatrical cut, while scaling back on the Mulder-Scully relationship, a trade-off that results in what he calls “a good scary movie.” Carter also talked about the studio meddling that resulted in the 2008 cut being very different than what he intended, explaining, “They wanted more emotion in the script, and they didn't really understand that you get an emotional relationship with these characters with every story, and you don't have to lean into it for the big screen. ‘Let's make a good scary movie’ is really what I had wanted to do, anyway.” Carter continued, “But, as always, the studio wins. They're the people that are putting up the moolah, so they won that argument, and it just felt to me like a good scary X-Files story has those elements, but doesn't necessarily have to have them competing with the case itself.” X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn is now available to stream on Hulu and Disney+. Release Date July 24, 2008 Runtime 104 minutes Director Chris Carter Cast David Duchovny Fox Mulder The X Files: I Want to Believe reconnects former FBI partners Fox Mulder and Dana Scully as they investigate a missing person's case tied to a priest's psychic claims. Writers Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz Producers Frank Spotnitz, Chris Carter Main Genre Sci-Fi Executive Producer(s) Brent O'Connor Budget $30 million Studio(s) 20th Century Distributor(s) 20th Century