Talk is Jericho, baby.

Talk is Jericho.

Talk is Jericho, Mama, talk is me.

Damian Leone is here, again, director of Terror Fire, and Phil Falcone, the producer, is here.

And there's lots to discuss, obviously, Halloween Horror Nights, massivelyone, the producer is here. And there's lots to discuss.

Obviously, Halloween Horror Nights, massively huge.

The fact that the art the clown and terror fire is at Halloween Horror Nights, which just blows my mind to think about the fact that this little movie that you guys basically created together almost 10 years ago now.

Yeah.

Approaching.

It's not past.

Yeah.

Now on the biggest billboards for, you know, for the biggest Halloween extravaganza on both

coasts.

It's pretty wild, man.

First of all, thanks for having us again.

It's always a pleasure.

Can I just say, I mean, you were one of the first people to champion this franchise when nobody knew what it was. And always love you for that. Yeah, well. You really did. You saw what it could be. And people asked me all the time, they go, like, when did you know, like, this was, did you ever think this was going to turn into what it is now? And I always say you can never imagine it would get to this level.

But there was a moment where I think it was really toward the second short film where I really thought there was something cool with the character, but I didn't know how cool it could be or where it could go. I know when I first created, and the first time we all saw him on set, it was pretty striking. You knew there was something really cool there, but you didn't know what it could turn into.

So to see it start there, and now, like you said, we're in Halloween Horror Nights, I feel like this is really sort of a mainstream level at this point. Yeah, and you mentioned the first short film. Was All Hallows Eve the second appearance of Art the Clown? So they were short films first.

The first one was a short film called The Ninth Circle. And then a few years later, I made another one called Terrifier. Put them into some festivals. They didn't really do much. Then I just threw them on YouTube. And this was back in probably 2010-ish around there. So YouTube wasn't quite what it is now. and they were just, but then they started gaining momentum on YouTube and getting a lot of views, even for like a 20 minute short film. And then a producer found them who wanted to make an anthology called All Holzee. And he said, hey, can I love your clown. I want him to be on the poster of this movie. It's going to be an anthology. We'll try and find some other filmmakers who have shorts that are already made. And I convinced him to letting me be the only filmmaker and using my short films. And, you know, he gave me a couple of bucks to do like a wrap around just to turn it into a feature. But that's how it started. So they were already pre-made short films. I got, you know, thrown into a while I was here. Right. Right. Phil, how did you get connected with Damien to start all this? I met Damien through mutual friends. I was shooting a film called Joe's War about PTSD, and how could you have a war film without some blood and guts?

So I talked to my partner, and I said, John, I need somebody that could do special effects.

He said, I just did a teaser for somebody, and there was a guy, Damien on the set. He's pretty cool. So I said, give me his number. Let me call him. Let me talk to him. And Damien came down, and we hit it off. And, you know, I was blowing away. I was blowing into blood tubes and shit. And I'm going, ah, this is awesome, you know. People looking at the director on his knees.

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