The first Housecore Horror Film Festival was a mindshredding mix of terror flicks and screaming metal. Now one of the creepiest shorts from the film programming, Air Conditions, has erupted online.

No stranger to the melding of horror and riffs, director Ryan Oliver and his firm Deathblow Productions has created videos for Chcago post-metal, post-hardcore mainstays like The Atlas Moth and Harpoon. He’s currently in preproduction as writer on his next project, medical murder anthology Anatomy of Horror.

But at Housecore, it was his eerie 34 minute short Air Conditions that enthralled the audience at the zombie room. A simple tale of an air conditioner repair man (the phenomenal John Fenner Mays) who finds himself in a sticky situation, it’s every blue collar supernatural urban fear caught in Cthulhu-tinged nightmarish color.

No word yet on the second year of HHFF (last time we knew, festival co-creators Corey Mitchell and Phil Anselmo were still sleeping the sleep of the just after the four days of insanity.) However, over at the festival’s Facebook page, they’re currently taking suggestions for bands for 2014. More as we know it …

This article appears in November 8 • 2013.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.