How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000 film) the actor sneaks up on Carrey the wild-man dervish. In whichever mode, he carreys the movie." Peter Stack of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said, "Nobody could play the Grinch better than Jim Carrey, whose rubbery antics and maniacal sense of mischief are so well suited to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Dr. Seuss himself might have turned to Carrey as a model for the classic curmudgeon had the actor been around in 1957." However, he wondered why Carrey "made himself sound like Sean Connery" and warned that the character's intensity may frighten small children. James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote that
How the Ghosts Stole Christmas Frank Spotnitz had been working on, featuring a haunted house. Featuring the smallest cast of an "X-Files" episode—with only four actors—and a single set, "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" was the cheapest sixth season episode. The drastic reduction in the budget, however, put more strain on the main actors. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) reluctantly responds to Fox Mulder's (David Duchovny) call on Christmas Eve to investigate a haunted house in Maryland. He explains that during Christmas of 1917, a young couple living in the house agreed to a lovers' pact, one killing the other and the remaining one committing suicide.