The Calusari

"The Calusari" is the twenty-first episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It originally aired on the Fox network on April 14, 1995. It was written by Sara B. Charno and directed by Michael Vejar. "The Căluşari" is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology, or fictional history. It earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.3, being watched by 7.9 million households in its initial broadcast. Due to perceived inconsistencies in the plot, "The Căluşari" received mixed reviews from television critics.

The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, a photograph taken just before the death of a two-year-old boy yields evidence of some supernatural intervention which piques Mulder and Scully's curiosity. When another death in the family occurs, the grandmother of the remaining child requests the aid of some Romanian ritualists, named the Calusari, in order to cleanse the home of evil.

The script for "The Calusari" was inspired by Charno's experience as a doctor of Eastern medicine. The inspiration for the entry came from an idea series creator Chris Carter had involving someone getting hanged with a garage-door opener. Because "The Calusari" was heavy in terms of violence, Fox's standards and practices department took issues with several scenes. In addition, Carter re-cut the episode after it was completed in order to make it scarier.