The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.

In this episode, Scully takes a vacation to Maine, where she encounters a bizarre case where the victims appear to have inflicted wounds upon themselves—apparently at the behest of a strange young girl.

Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is coincidentally in the area on vacation, and, after stumbling upon the carnage in the store, telephones Fox Mulder (David Duchovny).

Scully dismisses Mulder's hypothesis and instead decides to watch the store's closed-circuit television recordings to gain a better understanding of what happened.

The police chief of Ammas Beach, Jack Bonsaint, offhandedly mentions that Melissa is rumored to practice witchcraft.

Bonsaint tells Scully that Melissa had formerly been married to a local fisherman, but he was killed when a hook on his winch ripped through his skull.

While Melissa races back, Froelich is confronted by the enlarged Chinga and is forced to kill herself with a shard of a phonograph record.

King initially approached series co-star David Duchovny and informed him that he was a fan of the show and wanted to work on an episode.

[2] After contacting series creator Chris Carter, he was hired as a guest writer (after first being offered the chance to write an episode of Millennium).

She explained, "The way the script was originally read to me, initially seemed to me as if Scully kind of stepped up to the plate and played along with the sheriff's humor".

Likewise, the supermarket scenes were filmed in a real store named "Shop Easy" located in Port Coquitlam.

[4] The "Death Under Glass" scene featuring Dave the Butcher with a knife in his eyes was created in post-production with the help of a computer.

Special effects supervisor Laurie Kellsen-George tested the scene on her nine- and eleven-year-old sons, explaining, "I gauge a lot of the show by whether my kids can stand them or not.

[2] Most of the makeup effects were created by artist Toby Lindala, who "appreciated the chance to [work on] a Stephen King project".

[7] However, because the title "Chinga" is a Mexican-Spanish swear word "equivalent to 'fuck' and in very common usage", the episode was retitled "Bunghoney" when it aired in the UK.

Club gave a mixed review, awarded it a C−, and called it an episode that "seems like one of those ideas that sounds really, really great until someone thinks about for more than a minute.

[11] Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode two-and-a-half stars out of five and called it "clumsy".

Katie Anderson from Cinefantastique named the scene wherein Dave the Butcher kills himself as the eighth "Scariest Moment" in The X-Files.