Killing It

The fascinating story of Columbus-area native Ryan Francis’ move from horror movie actor to nerdcore rapper

By Taylor Dorrell / Photos by Jen Brown / Story Design by Bryce Patterson

Ryan Francis, also known by his stage name Huge Euge, is a relatively average millennial Midwesterner with a shaved head, a short beard, and an appearance which, to the untrained eye, might go unnoticed in a crowd. But to those who do know him, with his casual presence and his niche oeuvre, he looks and talks exactly like the glasses-wearing character Darren from the 2007 horror film, Thankskilling, which in fact he is.

But that’s not all he is.

Francis was born and raised in Ohio, coming of age in the 90s in Heath where he was a passionate “theater kid,” he dropped out of Ohio University his sophomore year while playing drums in the MySpace-era punk band Overrated. He then starred in the black comedy slasher, Thankskilling, and now, working a day job at covermymeds, he is pursuing a career in the musical genre called “nerdcore,” a niche category of rap that caters to self-described geeks, techies, and nostalgic millennials. And he’s killing it.

Thankskilling

As it happens, most do not know anything about nerdcore and the appeal of terrible horror movies. Horror is a genre, probably the only genre, where a movie is more successful the worse it is. The appeal is not in its quality, but in its entertainment value.

“With horror,” Francis explained, “you don’t need a good script. You need some creative kill scenes, good one-liners, and people just want to smoke a bowl or drink a bottle of whiskey and watch this stuff and just laugh.”

But the niche genre nonetheless draws crowds that fill convention center halls across the country and generates fandoms far larger than one would expect. In fact, after the unexpected success of Thankskilling – a student made horror flick about a killer turkey whose creative one-liner is “there’s no such thing as an evil turkey, oh wait, I lied” – Francis started getting recognized in public, receiving invites to speak at horror conventions, and signing autographs for fans.

There was a point when he found himself at a convention table in Dayton sitting next to the professional wrestlers Diamond Dallas Page and Jake the Snake and the Red Ranger from Power Rangers Being killed by a talking turkey in a student horror film had earned him the same level of fame as professional wrestlers and a power ranger, an achievement that is as impressive as it is absurd.

When the film was turned into an Off Broadway opera in the 2010s, showing in New York and Atlanta, people came from all over the world to see it. When the opera was put on in the Short North in 2016, Francis played his original role. The show sold out every night, attracting fans from New York, Montana, and even a couple from Alaska. “It was just crazy that this silly, terrible, terrible movie gripped people so much,” Francis recalled.

While his career acting in horror films was short lived, he later moved onto another niche scene in the arts.

Nerdcore & Huge Euge

To understand nerdcore, one has to understand the 2016 drama between late Jeopardy host Alex Trebek and the nerdcore rap community. On a 2016 episode of Jeopardy, a contestant gave a personal anecdote confessing that she listens to “nerdcore hip hop.” She defined the genre as “people who identify as nerdy, rapping about the things they love: video games, science fiction, having a hard time meeting romantic partners.”

The host, Alex Trebek, responded coldly, “losers, in other words.” The clip was uploaded to YouTube where it garnered half a million views and gave the nerdcore community, perhaps for the first time, a single rallying cry: to make a diss track against Alex Trebek.

The track and video titled “Who is Alex Trebek?” satirized Jeopardy and called out Trebek who, as one rapper put it, “call us losers then backtrack it like you didn’t really mean it, on a show that’s made for geeks, so what you think we wouldn’t see it?” Francis sees this as a major historical event in the development of nerdcore, a TVfueled internet feud between nerds.

It was during a small Thankskilling release party in a little bar in Heath when Francis performed his first show as Huge Euge, his own nerdcore alter ego. It was a small crowd and was a somewhat confusing experience for those in attendance, a majority of whom were there to see a horror movie about a talking killer turkey. But it was also a confusing experience for Francis, who was still trying to figure out what he was doing as a nerdcore artist. Over the years, Francis has become more comfortable on stage, has recorded music, and met other artists.

Nerdcore, a niche genre that still hasn’t found its mass audience, doesn’t produce enough local artists to get a full lineup, so Huge Euge often finds himself opening for a variety of acts, from comedians to hardcore bands. Despite audiences often not recognizing the genre at first, crowds have been supportive. “The music scene here is super accepting,” Francis told me.

Nerdcore rap started as a hobby for Francis, something he did on the side. In 2012, he started an annual performance called the Huge Euge Holiday Show where he’d headline a show after chatting with B-list celebrities and actors. But for a long time, that was the extent of Huge Euge.

Then the pandemic hit. All of a sudden Huge Euge became a more essential aspect of Francis’ life. He teamed up with Matt Stinnett to record and get the ball rolling on new music, won a grant from covermymeds to go on tour, and has been booking more shows around town, and recently even received a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant for his newest track. His music takes on a variety of topics. One of his songs is a story about Tony the Tiger finding an alien Blob; another is about hula hooping; and then there’s a working-class dialogue between a quitting bartender and his employer.

While the nerdcore community is still small, it is growing. Columbus is seeing a boom in tech jobs and other white collar work, an influx of millennial geeks that could act as an omen signaling a bright future for the genre of nerdcore. In this potentially radiant future, Huge Euge, the punk drummer turned b-list horror celebrity turned nerdcore rapper, will undoubtedly be at the forefront.

You can follow Huge Euge @HugeEugeOfficial; His new song “Super Toy Run” (beat by Matae) went live on all streaming platforms July 1