The X-Files - 4.

French title: El Chupacabra

US Airdate: January 12, 1997

writer: John Shiban

director: Tucker Gates

STARRING:

David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder

Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully

Guest Cast:

MITCH PILEGGI as Assistant Director Skinner

RUBEN BLADES as Conrad Lozano

RAYMOND CRUZ as Eladio Buente

PAMELA DIAZ as Maria Dorantes

JOSE YENQUE as Soledad Buente

LILLIAN HURST as Flakita

SUSAN BAIN as the County Coroner

ROBERT THURSTON as Dr. Larry Steen

SIMI as Gabrielle Buente

TINA AMAYO as the older shanty woman

MIKE KOPSA as Rick Culver

MULDER AND SCULLY FOLLOW A TRAIL OF BODIES LEFT BEHIND BY WHAT COULD BE THE LEGENDARY CHUPACABRA

In a migrant workers' shantytown in California's San Joaquin Valley, Eladio Buente flirts with pretty Maria Dorantes while his brother Soledad watches jealously. Flakita, a nosy neighbor, bemoans the age-old story: "Two brothers. One woman. Trouble." Suddenly, three earsplitting booms come out of nowhere, followed by a painfully bright flash, and a brief but torrential downpour of hot yellow rain. In its aftermath, Flakita discovers the mutilated corpses of Maria and one of her goats, their faces partially eaten away. Eladio is missing. Mulder and Scully investigate the deaths. According to Mulder, the strange occurrences preceding Maria's death are called Fortean events. As he says, "An unusual or highly infrequent meteorological phenomenon...Fortean events have been linked to alien encounters, and cattle mutilations..." Scully greets Mulder's information with her usual skepticism. She can't tell much from the goat's corpse, and Maria's body is at the morgue.

According to Flakita, Maria was killed by El Chupacabra (the Goatsucker): a gray hairless creature out of Mexican folk tales with a small body, large head and bulging black eyes. Soledad angrily refutes Flakita's story. He accuses his brother, Eladio, of killing Maria out of jealousy. This lover's triangle convinces Scully that Eladio is the killer, until Mulder talks her into examining Maria's remains. The state of Maria's corpse shocks even Scully. It's hardly visible beneath mounds of greenish fungal growth. Meanwhile, Mulder locates Eladio with the help of Conrad Lozano, a good- natured cynical Immigration agent. Eladio is in INS custody, segregated from fearful prisoners who think he's El Chupacabra. Eladio denies killing Maria. He claims something or someone unknown mutilated Maria during the yellow rain. Mulder believes his story, and Scully agrees. Scully's autopsy of the body revealed that Maria succumbed to a massive fungal infection.

Eladio escapes from INS custody, leaving in his wake another victim killed by a fungus. Mulder thinks there may be a connection between the fungi and the missing immigrant. He relies on the reluctant Lozano to help find Eladio. Lozano helps Mulder track Eladio to a construction site where he has found work, but the vengeful Soledad is also on Elido's trail. Both brothers escape before Lozano and Mulder can take them into custody. The site's foreman is dead, his body ravaged by the fungus. Just in time, Scully warns Mulder against touching or inhaling the lethal lichen. A mycology professor has isolated an enzyme that acts as a catalyst, accelerating fungal growth. If it escapes into the environment, there could be a biological hazard of frightening proportions.

She tells him Eladio is responsible for deaths by spreading the enzyme which he somehow is carrying. Mulder now thinks the Fortean events could have been caused by something falling from space...which would mean the enzyme is alien. Scully,on the verge of losing patience with Mulder's theories, just wants him to find the man who seems to be spreading it.

Now appearing quite ill, Eladio begs his cousin Gabrielle for help. She reluctantly agrees to lend him money later that night. Flakita, the village gossip, reappears with a warning: Soledad is planning to kill Eladio. Eladio eludes them again, but Lozano arrests Soledad. When Eladio sees his face for the first time, he can't believe the horror of it. He no longer looks human. Eladio has indeed transformed into El Chupacabra. Gabrielle tells Scully and Mulder that Eladio has run away to Mexico. But Mulder realizes it's a lie. Speeding on their way, he alerts a hazmat team to meet them at the shantytown...where it all began. Where the two brothers finally will have it out over Maria.

What really happened that night? According to Flakita, Lozano brings Soledad to the camp, and orders Eladio to face him like a man. But Eladio is no longer a man...he is El Chupacabra. Flakita hides as grey aliens-- whom she calls Chupacabras--descend on the village. They kill Lozano, and take Soledad up in the sky with them.

Gabrielle weaves another tale. Lozano orders Eladio to face Soledad. In the horror of realizing his brother is El Chupacabra, Soledad can't shoot. He and Lozano struggle over the gun, and Lozano takes a bullet. The two brothers, now both Chuapcabras, run away to Mexico.

The story Mulder and Scully report to Skinner isn't much clearer. All they know is that by the time they got to the camp, both the brothers are gone. Lozano is dead...brought down by two bullets and the fungus. And Los Chupacabras? The Buente brothers, their faces luridly disfigured, hitchhike off into the Mexican night.

Mulder: "Agent Lozano, how does this man keep eluding us?

Lozano: "These people are invisible. You look and them and you don't see them. This work is cheap labor to pick crops and clean houses. To most people, they're aliens in the true sense of the word."

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Skinner: "So these men are still at large, carrying a highly contagious- fungus- that can kill a man in his tracks?"

Scully: "It's not a fungus, sir, actually it's an enzyme, to which the brothers had an abnormal tolerance, and which came from what I believe to be an anti-enzyme gene."

Skinner: "And this enzyme came from where?"

Mulder: "Outer space, sir."

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Immigration Agent Lozano: "This guy is better than Erik Estrada."

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Scully: "Mulder, you brought me out here under the pretense of investigating an unexplained death. Can you tell me why we're standing out here in the middle of a field looking at a dead goat?"

Mulder: "According to eyewitnesses, the death we're investigating was preceded by a Fortean Event."

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Scully: "Did you find Eladio Buente?"

Mulder: "Yeah, I saw him."

Scully: "Did he confess to the murder of Maria Dorantes?"

Mulder: "Not exactly, no."

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Scully: "Purple Rain?"

Mulder: "Yeah. Great album. Deeply flawed movie, though."

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Scully: "It makes perfect sense, Mulder. Admit it, you fell for it. Your Fortean Event turned out to be nothing more than the oldest story in the world: Two men, one woman, trouble."

Mulder: "I admit there's a strong suspicion of motive and intent, but the amount of details, the description of that Chupacabra . . ."

Scully: "Mulder, what we've walked into here is a Mexican soap opera."

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Scully: "You know what she said about Eladio Buente, about his face . . . ."

Mulder: "I don't know what to believe any more, Scully. These people sure love their stories."

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Agent Lozano: "They are only interested in what will become of Eladio Buente."

Mulder: "What will become of him?"

Lozano: "When his brother finds him . . . ."

Mulder: "He'll kill him."

Lozano: "Yes, probably. A man cannot live with vengeance in his heart."

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Scully: "Mulder, I know you don't want to hear this, but I think the aliens in this story are not the villains, they're the victims."

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Mulder: "The victim and many of the witnesses are illegal immigrants; migrant farm workers. I thought it might be important to talk to them before they migrated."

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INS Agent: "Let's see... Ok. We have a Jose Feliciano. We have Juan Valdez. We have Cesar Chavez. We have Placido Domingo here. But I don't see any Alario Buente."

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