With all the excitement over Ryan Coogler’s X-Files reimagining being picked up by Hulu (yay!), there’s no better time to revisit some of the show’s classic episodes. And the timing is right to shock yourself anew with “Home,” a monster-of-the-week entry that’s scarier than just about any horror movie on your shelf, except maybe the one that inspired it, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

In “Home,” set in rural Pennsylvania, Mulder and Scully investigate after kids playing baseball discover the corpse of a deformed baby buried in a shallow grave. That would already be nightmare material, but then the FBI agents trace the infant to a nearby farmhouse occupied by the Peacock brothers. They live off the grid, and, according to local legend, are the product of generations of inbreeding.

The agents assume, of course, that they’ll find a kidnapped and tortured woman who has recently given birth held captive inside the house. But instead, they meet… Mrs. Peacock, hiding under a bed and providing jump scares galore thanks to the terrifying make-up that transformed guest star Karin Konoval into the misshapen yet ferocious family matriarch.

In an interview with Gold Derby timed to the 30th anniversary of “Home,” which first aired October 11, 1996, Konoval (who later played Maurice the orangutan via motion capture in Rise of the Planet of the Apes and its sequels) looked back fondly at her place in TV horror history. “Home” is often cited as the scariest X-Files episode ever and is certainly its most controversial.

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