The X-Files 20th Anniversary Blogging: "Schizogeny" (January 11, 1998)

The X-Files (1993 – 2002) fifth season episode “Schizogeny” explicitly concerns the cycle of domestic abuse in American families and the fact that the violence of one generation often takes “root” and blooms in the next. 

Rather daringly, the episode actually literalizes this concept of “taking root.”  Thus “Schizogeny” explores how the local trees of a small Michigan town seem to burst to life to do the bidding of those consumed with unexpressed rage, violence, and the thirst for vengeance.

So yes, this is the famous “killer trees” episode of the Chris Carter series.

“Schizogeny” establishes that the local families living near the Michigan orchard consider themselves connected to the land, and at points in “Schizogeny” it also appears that human blood runs through the root systems of these nearby trees. 

Accordingly, the episode strives to connect the people to their home-land, and in large part succeeds in that task.  For instance, we learn that when one abusive local, Mr. Matthews, was alive, the trees suffered a terrible blight.  That blight didn’t end until his death.  Now, the orchard and its roots swallow up those who, like Mr. Matthews, would hurt the town’s children.

Although not particularly well-regarded by critics in 1998, this offbeat episode of The X-Files succeeds on the basis of its unique location, its careful dramatic point about the nature of “family trees,” and even, in the final analysis, “Schizogeny’s” dedicated homage to and re-parsing of a horror film classic: Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).

Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate a strange homicide in Michigan.  An apparently abusive step-father is found dead, buried up to his neck in the muddy Earth of the nearby orchard.

The prime suspect in this crime is the victim’s stepson, Bobby (Chad Lindberg), who is in therapy with Dr. Karin Matthews (Sarah-Jane Redmond) for anger issues.

When a second murder occurs and another allegedly abused child is involved, Scully and Mulder realize that Karin is the link between murders. 

Karin’s abusive father died twenty years earlier in the mud of the orchard, and now a murderous connection 

exists between man and nature.

“Schizogeny” is a visually distinctive episode, a fact which endows this installment with much of its creepy energy. For instance, the trees in the orchard bend towards one another -- creating natural tunnels in the process -- and several compositions reveal Mulder, Scully or others walking through this naturally-occurring structure. 

Craftily, this visual of the natural tunnels also symbolizes something vital: the protective, nurturing arms of the orchard, which reach down and surround visitors.  These “arms” protect those whom the trees love and feel connected to. And by the same token, the hidden roots underneath the ground can attack those who would do the locals harm.

The episode’s teaser -- set in this picturesque orchard during a thunderstorm -- provides a splendidly Gothic image: that of nature perverted and twisted (again, think of those roots…) by their connection to mankind. Here, the trees are being used for sinister purposes by man, and suffering a physical blight just as man (or woman) suffers a psychic blight.

“Schizogeny” explores the idea of this man/plant symbiosis in psychological terms, much how Forbidden Planet (1956) contextualized Morbius’s connection to the Monster from The Id on Altair.   Here, as in that case, the trees act at the bidding of a deranged human mind.  And when man is angry or destructive, the trees strike for his dark purposes.

At some point, young Karin Matthews learned to harness the power of the trees to express her deeply-held rage against her father, a violent personality who often kept her locked up in the basement.  But by the end of the episode, the trees have realized that Karin is not the innocent, victimized child she once was. 

Instead, she has blossomed to become just as evil and monstrous as her father once was. 

I was going to write that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, but perhaps it is better merely to note that the seed of darkness planted in Karin at a young age by her father’s action has come to germination.  The cycle of violence is complete: the child has grown up to become the monster that the parent was. 

In exploring Karin’s story, and her twisted psychology, The X-Files deliberately re-parses the story of Psycho (1960), but with the added supernatural element of the sentient tree root system.  Specifically, the episode concerns an adult (Karin/Norman) who was mistreated by a parent (Mr. Matthews/Mrs. Bates) and whose mind has splintered into at least two personalities (that of the abused and that of the abuser, as was also the case with Norman Bates). 

Similarly, the fulcrum for the family’s dark secrets is a fruit cellar or basement. 

In Psycho, as you may recall, Norman kept Mrs. Bates’ corpse in the basement, in a rocking chair, during the film’s finale.  Here, Karin (Sarah Jane Redmond) must also reckon with the corpse of her abuser, her long-dead father, only in this case, the tree roots have dragged him to the fruit cellar from his grave. 

Did she use the trees to bring him there, so the abusive voice in her head would never be far away? Or did the trees drag old Dad to the cellar to remind Karin of the face of evil?

Karin also speaks in the (creepy) voice of her father (as Norman spoke in Mother’s voice), and is consumed by the very evil that took her father, which is similar to Norman’s fate in a sense.  Where “Schizogeny” diverges from Psycho in an intriguing fashion, however, is not merely in the application of a supernatural or paranormal element, but in the idea that Karin is a psychologist. 

As a therapist, Karin constantly re-fights her own battle with her father, and she views every patient problem, similarly, as a re-iteration of that specific family dynamic.  Thus Bobby must express his rage at his father…even though he doesn’t feel the rage that Karin did. 

Essentially, Karin’s vocation as a therapist means that she continues the cycle of violence spawned by her father, but -- intriguingly so -- not with her natural children, but with the other children of the town.  She transfers the evil to others in the same way the blight moves from tree to tree. 

Damningly, Karin sees every parent/child relationship as a reiteration of her own negative, abusive relationship, but finally, the trees snap this cycle before it can be perpetuated for another generation, or harm others.

Is the idea of killer trees ridiculous, as some critics of this episode assert?

Well, it seems to me that once you decide to buy into Fluke Men or Black Oil, or other such monsters, killer trees represent only a small leap further into horror.  What I find important instead is the fact that “Schizogeny” is thematically and visually consistent.  The visuals of the trees and roots reflect the narrative content about human generations, and the cycle of violence.

And finally this episode also features a remarkable performance from Redmond, Millennium’s Lucy Butler.  Redmond holds the screen here, and engenders both sympathy and fear for Karin.

Next week: Stephen King meets The X-Files in “Chinga."