Unruhe

On a rainy day in Traverse City, Michigan, a young woman, Mary Lefant, takes a passport photo at a local pharmacy, leaving her lover waiting in the car. Realizing that she has forgotten her wallet, Lefant returns to the car, where he is horrified to see that her lover has been killed. A passing man in a rain coat knocks Lefant unconscious by injecting her with a powerful sleeping pill, and kidnaps the woman. The old apothecary, tired of waiting for Lefant, looks at the pictures he has just taken, but instead of a smiling woman, he sees her against a murky background, screaming in fear.

Mulder and Scully begin an investigation. Mulder tells his partner about "thoughtgraphs" -photographs taken in the 1930s by the magician Ted Serios, using his mind to develop the desired image on paper. During a search of Lefant's apartment, Mulder finds a Polaroid and, pressing his hand to the lens, takes a picture, which again shows the image of Lefant screaming in fear, as in the photo from the pharmacy. Mulder comes to the conclusion that the kidnapper was tracking his victim and influenced the film with his thoughts.

lefant, wandering along the side of the highway, is discovered by a patrolman. at the hospital, it turns out that someone gave her a lobotomy, and did it wrong. alice brandt becomes the next victim of the kidnapping. the kidnapper ties her to a dental chair and, holding a sharp medical device in his hands, speaks in german. mulder returns to washington, where he studies a photo of a screaming lefant in a digital analysis lab. In the photo, he finds the face of an elderly man and the shadow of the kidnapper, who has unusually long legs.

scully goes to the construction company to check out a possible lead, since the company was working near both crime scenes. it's lunch at the construction site, and there are no workers, but scully meets the foreman, jerry schnauz, who moves on working stilts. At this time, Mulder calls Scully and informs her about the unusually long legs of the kidnapper. scully pulls out a gun, and schnauz tries to run, but scully catches up with him and arrests him.

during the interrogation, the agents find out that schnauz's father bullied him, and jerry eventually beat him to a pulp, for which he was sent to a mental hospital. schnauz tells where he hid the body of brandt, who is found dead with traces of a lobotomy. From a conversation with Schnauz, Mulder understands that Jerry considers himself the savior of his victims, ridding them of certain "howlers" that appear in photos in the form of toothy monsters.

schnauz escapes from custody, shooting a police officer, and robs a pharmacy, taking a "polaroid", photographic film and various medical preparations. after the agents arrive at the scene of the crime, schnauz takes the opportunity to kidnap scully, while mulder comes across a photo of scully screaming against a background of monsters. mulder searches father schnauz's dental office and sees that jerry has taken the dental chair from there.

Scully, who has woken up from anesthesia, tries to stall for time with the help of conversational German skills. Schnauz takes a photo of himself, which scares him a lot. After deciphering the images in the photo of a screaming Scully, Mulder finds her and Schnauz in a motorhome in the cemetery where Schnauz's father is buried. schnauz tries to give scully a lobotomy, but mulder breaks into the motorhome and kills the criminal with a shot to the chest. Schnauz falls next to an earlier photo of himself shot in the chest.