Northern Michigan. A young woman is kidnapped and her boyfriend murdered. Her
passport photographs, taken only moments earlier, don’t show the expected smiling
portraits. Instead, they display nightmarish images of the terrified girl.
The photographs fascinate Mulder. Scully tries to find a logical explanation: the pictures
were planted, or the film is damaged. But to Mulder, they are an example of “psychic
photography”: the paranormal ability to create images on film with the mind. Mulder
theorizes that the suspect doesn’t even know he possesses this gift…and that the
photographs reveal the killer’s darkest fantasies.
The kidnap victim is found: alive, but almost brain-dead. Her abductor had given her a
primitive, botched lobotomy with an ice pick inserted through her eyes. Her mind almost
gone, she endlessly repeats the word “unruhe.”: the German word for “trouble” or “unrest.”
Soon, the kidnapper abducts and kills again.
Scully realizes that the same construction company had job sites near each crime
scene. While Mulder is in Washington to examine the photos at the FBI labs, Scully follows
up on her lead. She knows foreman Gerry Schnauz is the kidnapper by his terrified reaction
to the word “unruhe.” She arrests him.
Schnauz is a formerly institutionalized paranoid schizophrenic with a history of violence.
When confronted by the photographs of his victims, he’s startled at the sight of his own
paranoid delusions brought to life on film. Admitting the crime, he tells them where to find
his other victim. She too has been lobotomized.
Schnauz kills a guard and escapes from jail. He returns to the scene of the first crime to
steal the camera and film. Mulder’s blood runs cold when he sees exposed photographs of
Schnauz’s next victim: Scully! Now, Mulder’s only hope of saving her is studying the photos
to get deep inside Schnauz’s mind.
In captivity, Scully, too, must use everything she knows about Schnauz to keep herself
alive. But she can’t talk him out of his delusions. It won’t be long before he wields the
icepick to rid Scully of the “unruhe” he believes is tormenting her.
Mulder’s insight into the madman’s mind leads him to Schnauz’s dark den. With hardly a
moment to spare, he shoots Scully’s kidnapper. And finds one last series of psychic
photographs: Schnauz — shot dead on the floor.
THE X-FILES “Unruhe” #4X04
Original Air Date: 10/27/96
CAST:
DAVID DUCHOVNY as Special Agent Fox Mulder
GILLIAN ANDERSON as Special Agent Dana Scully
GUEST CAST:
PRUITT VINCE as Gerry Schnauz
SCOTT HEINDL as the byfriend
SHARON ALEXANDER as Mary LeFante
WALTER MARSH as the druggist
WILLIAM MACDONALD as Officer Trott
RON CHARTIER as Inspector Puett
MICHELE MELLAND as the doctor
ANGELA DONAHUE as Alice
WRITTEN BY:
VINCE GILLIGAN
DIRECTED BY:
ROB BOWMAN
