Halloween becomes a yearly opening for gender play, anonymity, and queer escape.
The Q Files starts from Lori's back porch, where a glass of wine and a seasonal question open into a larger look at why Halloween can feel so queer.
Ghost hunts, old murders and legends, from a queer angle.
The gist
Shane McClelland and Lori Gumm range from a ghost hunt in an eerily dark Fall River to the Minoan collapse that may sit behind the Atlantis legend, stopping to test the ten plagues of Egypt against natural disaster. Loose two-voice conversation alternates with tightly narrated storytelling, with a queer reading of the strange underneath.
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About The Q Files
The Q Files is the work of Shane McClelland and Lori Gumm, who treat the uncanny as a way into history. The range is wide. A ghost hunt, a notorious murder trial, a horror-movie cliché and a sunken city can all sit side by side, held together by a habit of asking where a story actually came from and by a queer vantage point that surfaces most openly around Halloween. 'File Room: Why Is Halloween So Queer?' is set on Lori's back porch, the pair's favourite spot for wine and strange talk. There they argue that costumes were always closer to performance than dress-up. Masks offered anonymity. Disguise allowed gender-defying roles, and they set that freedom against Pride, which in their view does not permit quite the same thing. The conversation lands on liberation: for one evening a year, anyone can be out. It also coins a new unit of measurement, 'nine dead cats', which says plenty about the humour. The register can change completely from one episode to the next. 'File Room: The Third Bloody Option' is tightly narrated. It revisits the trial of Lisbeth Borden through the Boston Globe's account of a nation gripped by the case, then follows the two of them to Fall River on Labor Day, where every restaurant, diner and house sat dark and something seemed to have been in their room while they were out. That story runs across more than one installment. 'File Room: Ancient Indian Burial Grounds - Oh My!', a Thanksgiving episode, traces the trope through horror films and books and credits its spread to two lines Stanley Kubrick added to The Shining, lines found nowhere in Stephen King's novel. It notes a real 1970s court case in Maine involving the Wabanaki Confederation and asks listeners to send in the burial-ground stories their own communities tell. 'Atlantis' exists partly because the legend kept brushing past other episodes, from Pascal Beverly Randolph to ghosts in Antarctica. It moves from Plato to the Minoans: a vandalised statue, a cemetery at Chania, invaders carrying weapons like those of the ancient Greeks, a tsunami that left Crete exposed. Its closing reads the sunken city as a warning about hubris. 'The Ten Deadly Plagues...Plated' starts from a remembered family ritual of watching The Ten Commandments every Easter. It then tests the plagues against a natural chain modelled on Lake Nyos, where water goes bad, fish die, frogs flee and insects follow. It ends on a litany that recasts each plague as a call for social change. 'File Room: Mother's Murder Day' gives the holiday a twisted turn with a lightly edited tale from friend of the show Bucky Cutright about a mother named Ethel in 1930, and closes by pointing struggling parents toward a helpline. Humour and earnestness sit close together throughout. The motto at the end sums up the whole approach: 'Be weird. Stay curious.'
Made for: Suits a listener who wants ghost stories with footnotes, someone happy to move from a Fall River ghost hunt to a Minoan tsunami to the origins of a horror-film trope, and who welcomes a queer reading of holidays and folklore.
What sets it apart: Rather than stopping at the scare, The Q Files chases a legend to its source, crediting the burial-ground trope to a Kubrick addition and testing the ten plagues against natural disaster, all from an openly queer point of view.
In their own words
A paranormal podcast about the highly strange and weirdly unknown. Join us on our queer adventures as we explore the people, places, and phenomena, outside popular consciousness.
Why you'd press play
Atlantis and crawfish with the plagues: your curiosity may need a bigger plate.
Press play if you want
- to hear Shane McClelland and Laurie Gumm reason from foul water to frogs over crawfish
- a horror cliche traced from The Shining to anxieties about land ownership
ghost hunts and hauntingshistorical true crimeorigins of horror and folklore tropesancient myth and archaeologyqueer readings of holidayslegends traced to their historical source
Talks about
Best episodes of The Q Files
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A notorious murder case turns into a wary, atmospheric investigation of what the Borden house may still hold.
The Q Files begins Season 3 with a murder case already burdened by public fascination: a comparatively young woman tried for killing her father and stepmother, and a press corps eager to turn the trial into a national obsession.
A familiar horror trope becomes a route into contested land, homeowner anxiety, and everyday stories about the uncanny.
The Q Files follows the ancient Indian burial ground trope from late-1970s horror into the local stories people use to make sense of strange events close to home.
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Episodes
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File Room: Why Is Halloween So Queer?
Hidden gem["The Q Files frames Halloween as the queer Christmas, linking costume, anonymity, and gender performance to queer identity.", "Lori recalls moving to New York City in September 1981 and finding the Halloween Parade more transcendent than the Pride Parade that followed the next summer.", "The conversation moves through childhood costumes like astronaut, cowboy, and farmer, plus a recurring story about a child who dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and later Cruella de Vil.", "The episode closes by connecting Halloween to transphobia, misogyny, and the idea that people should be able to test identity without it becoming destiny."]
Oct 31, 2022·30m·2 clips - 2
File Room: The Third Bloody Option
Hidden gemThe Q Files opens Season 3 with "File Room: The Third Bloody Option," a Lizzie Borden episode tied to Fall River, Massachusetts, and the Borden murder house.
Aug 4, 2022·38m·2 clips - 3
File Room: Ancient Indian Burial Grounds - Oh My!
Hidden gem["The Q Files' Thanksgiving special 'File Room: Ancient Indian Burial Grounds - Oh My!' examines the ancient Indian burial-ground trope through Colin Dickey's Ghostland and The Unidentified.", "Dickey traces the idea from Philip Furnow's 1787 poem to The Shining and Pet Sematary, then links it to white homeowner anxiety and the Wabanaki land case in Maine.", "He argues that stories about haunted houses, captivity narratives, and alien-abduction tales keep recycling the same buried-history structure.", "The episode closes with Ohio's Chief Leatherlips curse story and a Plymouth Colony burial detail, then invites listeners to send in their own local examples."]
May 31, 2022·34m·3 clips - 4
Atlantis
The Q Files examines Plato's Atlantis, first described around 360 BC as a wealthy naval civilization destroyed by earthquakes and floods.
May 16, 2022·21m·1 clip - 5
File Room: Mother's Murder Day
May 8, 2022·15m - 6
The Ten Deadly Plagues...Plated
The Q Files episode The Ten Deadly Plagues...Plated reexamines the Exodus through ten plagues and a meal featuring blood sausage, frog legs, and camel meatballs.
Apr 25, 2022·1h 10m·2 clips - 7
Ghosts of Antarctica
Shane McClelland and Lori Gump open with the claim that roughly 300 deaths against about 3,000 residents at any time make Antarctica a statistically "haunted" continent.
Apr 11, 2022·27m·2 clips - 8
Lake Erie Monster
Mar 21, 2022·21m - 9
Perchance to Dream
In The Q Files episode “Perchance to Dream,” Randy Gardner’s 1963 experiment kept him awake for 264 hours.
Mar 7, 2022·35m·2 clips - 10
Paschal Beverly Randolph, Occultist
Feb 14, 2022·22m - 11
Birds Aren't Real
Jan 31, 2022·27m - 12
Told After Supper
Dec 21, 2021·1h 12m - 13
A Brave Little Soldier
Dec 6, 2021·32m - 14
The Final Conversation - Lizbeth Borden
Nov 22, 2021·33m - 15
Still Afraid - Lizzie Borden
Oct 25, 2021·43m - 16
The Third Bloody Option
Oct 11, 2021·38m - 17
We Begin Again. Are You Ready? - The Q Files Season 3
Sep 27, 2021·2m - 18
Finding Hester Foster (Part 2)
Jun 21, 2021·33m - 19
Finding Hester Foster
Jun 1, 2021·36m - 20
Mother's Murder Day
May 9, 2021·15m - 21
The Blackbird of Chernobyl
Apr 26, 2021·25m - 22
Doctoring the Devil - Appalachian Folk Magic with Jake Richards
An interview with an author about Appalachian folk magic, its history, and practice.
Apr 12, 2021·53m - 23
The Last, Last Supper
Apr 5, 2021·28m - 24
The Last Supper
Mar 29, 2021·56m - 25
Dark Air with Terry Carnation
The hosts introduce a special guest, legendary AM radio host Terry Carnation, for an interview about his new show and shared worldview.
Mar 22, 2021·24m - 26
Painting the Unexplained - Ralph Walters
Mar 15, 2021·1h - 27
Is This Spontaneous Human Combustion Or Am I Just Getting Warm?
Mar 1, 2021·16m - 28
Ghosts In The White House
Feb 15, 2021·28m - 29
The Legend of the Loveland Frogman
Feb 1, 2021·16m - 30
Twelfth Night
The hosts explore the darker and queer aspects of the forgotten holiday Twelfth Night.
Jan 18, 2021·57m - 31
The Kentucky Meat Shower of 1876
This episode investigates the bizarre 1876 Kentucky meat shower, a historical event where flesh fell from a clear sky, exploring various unsatisfying explanations.
Dec 7, 2020·35m - 32
Ancient Indian Burial Grounds - Oh My!
This episode analyzes the 'ancient Indian burial ground' trope in American horror, exploring its origins and cultural impact through an interview with author Colin Dickey.
Nov 23, 2020·34m - 33
The UFO Show
Nov 16, 2020·57m - 34
Dining With The Dead
The hosts explore the forgotten American tradition of cemetery picnics and historical burial practices with guest Bucky Cutright.
Nov 2, 2020·47m - 35
Donner Dinner Party (Part 2)
Oct 12, 2020·46m - 36
Donner Dinner Party
Sep 28, 2020·23m - 37
It's Time To Reopen The Q Files
Sep 21, 2020·4m - 38
What Fresh Hell Is This
Jul 27, 2020·9m - 39
The Season 1 Porch
Hosts Shane and Lori reflect on their first season and plan a ghost hunt in a junkyard.
Jul 13, 2020·59m - 40
Digging Up The Dead
Jun 22, 2020·28m - 41
Freaks - Johnny Eck
Jun 1, 2020·20m - 42
Phantom of Flatwoods
May 18, 2020·11m - 43
Ghost Train
May 4, 2020·20m - 44
The Crosswick Monster
Apr 20, 2020·17m - 45
Stigmata Minisode Update
Apr 13, 2020·4m - 46
Stigmata
The hosts explore the phenomenon of stigmata, discussing its history, possible explanations, and social etiquette.
Apr 6, 2020·25m - 47
Lady Wonder - Psychic Horse
Mar 23, 2020·19m