PopHorror Let's Get Scared
For more than 30 years, Danielle Harris (Halloween 2007) has proudly embraced her “scream queen” status. From 1988, when she portrayed the unwitting young niece of a masked murderer in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, to the present day, with current projects including Stream (our review) and Natty Knocks, Harris has remained a strong presence in the horror scene. So, who better to judge gory cakes than her?
Alongside experimental food artist and cookbook author Nikk Alcaraz (Practical Peculiarities: A Creepy Kitchen 2021), Harris is judging terrifyingly tasty creations on the new two-episode baking competition Killer Cakes, available on Prime Video. The show, from Blumhouse Television and Cake Boss creators High Noon Entertainment, tasks baking teams with bringing to life nightmarish desserts that range from bloody and disgusting to full-on possessed. Killer Cakes is hosted by Matthew Lillard (Scream 1996 [our interview]).
PopHorror recently chatted with Harris about her experience serving as a judge, her attraction to the world of horror, how she’s starting to introduce her children to (some) scary flicks and more.
PopHorror: To start, I watched Killer Cakes yesterday and really enjoyed it! How did this opportunity come to you to be a judge?
Danielle Harris: It was just a call to my team wondering if it’s something I would be into. I had judged one other sort of Halloween baking championship before years and years ago, maybe 12 or 13 years ago, so this was the first time that I’ve been back doing that in a while. I’ve been asking everybody, like, “I wanna do fun stuff! I wanna do fun stuff where I get to look pretty and taste yummy things!” So this was the perfect opportunity to do it. And the team behind it was obviously top-notch, so I couldn’t say, “No.”
PopHorror: What was the other show that you judged on?
Danielle Harris: It was Cupcake Wars.
PopHorror: Oh, fun!
Danielle Harris: Yeah, one of the Halloween episodes.
PopHorror: I enjoyed your judging style. You’re not afraid to give constructive criticism. I feel like on some competition shows, they’re afraid to say anything that’s not gleaming praise. Is that hard for you?
Danielle Harris: No. [laughs] I think I’d rather just be honest. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, I couldn’t do what any of them do, in any aspect. That’s not my creative forte. But I think it was pretty astonishing. No matter which one was better than the other, just the ability to do the stuff that they did was fantastic. So I kind of try to keep it neutral, but be honest. I don’t want anyone to go home crying, even though they did. I watch these shows all the time and I do see them going pretty light. I guess I would prefer to be a little bit softer than Simon Cowell, I would say, but I still wanna be the one that’s honest.
PopHorror: The setting looked really cool. Where exactly was that?
Danielle Harris: We were in Greenwich, Connecticut at a soundstage. The amount of detail that was put into this show blew my mind. I’m on movie sets all the time, and that’s with months and years to prep for something like this. And it is just not up to par with what this set looked like. It was just super cool. And obviously Matt’s the nicest human being to walk the planet Earth, so knowing that he was involved in it, I was like, “Hell, yeah I’ll do it!”
PopHorror: Have you worked with him previously? Or Nikk?
Danielle Harris: I met Nikk here on the show. I’ve known Matt throughout the years doing sort of the horror convention circuit, but it’s always been in passing. This was the first time that I got to actually hang out with him and see what he’s like on set, which was really cool. He’s, like I said, the nicest guy. He just takes care of everybody.
PopHorror: Yeah, I love how he went up to the one team and was like, “Hi, I’m your host, Matthew Lillard,” and they’re like, “We know!”
Danielle Harris: We know who you are, dude! It’s so cute. He’s just humble like that.
PopHorror: Was it all filmed in one day? Everyone had the same outfits on. If so, that had to be a long day.
Danielle Harris: No, we were there for, like, five days. They make it look like we were in and out. We’re there for days.
PopHorror: The contestants came up with some pretty insane creations. Were you surprised at how intricate and just disgusting some of them were?
Danielle Harris: I was surprised how the more disgusting it looked, the more delicious it tasted. Again, I couldn’t do any of that, so just the fact that we were eating body parts and they’re incorporating all the gory fun into baking. A lot of the baking shows I see are a little bit more PG, where this one was a little bit more PG-13-ish, a little edgier, a little bit rougher around the edges, a little bit more for my fanbase and my peers. My kids were mortified. They watched it with a blanket over their face. They were like, “That’s so cool, mom!,” and then as soon as it [the cake] would move, they would freak out. They’re 6 and 7.
PopHorror: It looked so fun though, you got to stab a couple of them.
Danielle Harris: Yeah, I was like, “Oh, give me that hatchet!”
PopHorror: Were there any that were almost too gross looking to try, or were you just down for all of them?
Danielle Harris: I think the electrocution chair one was super edgy to me, but yeah, I’ll eat anything if it’s tasty. Sweet anyway, I’m not a big experimental, gonna try weird food. So this was perfect.
PopHorror: Now I’d love to quickly go through a few of the cakes that really stood out to me and hear what your initial thoughts were, starting with the slaughterhouse one. That, to me, sounded like the best flavor, the peanut butter and bacon.
Danielle Harris: Yes, yes. I mean, anything with bacon is delicious. And I eat everything with peanut butter, too. I love the concept that they can come up with something that goes with the story but still tastes delicious.
PopHorror: And then the chest of body parts. Was there anything that they could’ve done differently?
Danielle Harris: I think they just ran out of time. I think when you get in your head, and that’s with anything really, when you get in your head and you get so particular about certain things, you kind of lose it. You just have to trust it and go with it. And they’re timed. There’s not a lot of time to do all of that stuff, but the chest itself took forever to make. But I love the blood splatter and all the body parts in there. And we didn’t know anything that was going on until we actually step up and it gets wheeled out for us to see it. So it’s all in real time just like the viewers.
PopHorror: You and Nikk don’t come on set until the very end of each episode. What are you guys doing the whole time backstage?
Danielle Harris: Talking about reality shows and horror movies and what he does and his baking stuff, which is fantastic, the stuff that he comes up with. Yeah, just hanging out, chilling and waiting for the contestants to do their thing.
PopHorror: And then I loved, that may have been my favorite one, the possessed zombie hospital patient. What did you think of that?
Danielle Harris: Yes, I mean, that looked real. That whole thing altogether, the story, I bought it. It just was a creature killer that I could see actually happening. It had a supernatural, zombie-ish vibe to it. I think it appeased everyone depending on what kind of horror you like. But I thought it was the most realistic looking one.
PopHorror: Definitely! You’ve been such an icon in the horror genre, really since you were a kid. What about it just keeps you not only coming back, but trying new avenues like being a cake judge?
Danielle Harris: I think it’s the community. I’ve been in the horror world for so long and even being out of it for the 20 years that I was out of it doing other things, there’s nothing quite like the fans of this genre. And I love, like Nikk always says, “Ghosts aren’t seasonal,” and I feel like it’s the same thing for Halloween. It’s now become everyone’s favorite holiday. And also, as far as movies and on-camera stuff, it’s just an opportunity to do things that maybe I wouldn’t get a chance to do because I’m not considered sort of known in that world, but in the horror world, everybody knows. So I feel super safe and at home and excited to take on different things. We get to be creative. It’s an incredibly difficult process to make movies and make things that have this element of special effects. I just love to be a part of all that stuff.
PopHorror: Yeah, it’s such a great community. I go to a lot of the horror conventions and it’s just such a cool atmosphere. People are walking around with hatchets and stuff, but they’re the nicest people.
Danielle Harris: There’s no judgement, everyone’s accepted, it’s fun. You have to have fun. I personally have a hard time taking a project that I’m not gonna have a good time doing. That’s just brutal. Even movie stuff, I don’t wanna be stuck with something that’s so heavy and emotional. So, of course, something like this is just, “Woo hoo! Get to look pretty, eat yummy food, and hang out and talk about other competition shows and reality shows.” It’s awesome.
PopHorror: And I always love to ask, what’s your favorite scary movie?
Danielle Harris: Oh, Poltergeist. My son went to school with one of the kids that lived in that house. So when we went over to a pool party, I had no idea. I pulled up and I about shit myself. I was like, “My God! This is the house!” But I think it’s similar to, I understand why fans liked my character in Halloween 4 so much because I know I related to Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke, Poltergeist II: The Other Side 1986). I related to that character because I was 5 or 6 when I snuck and saw it playing at my grandparents’ house. So it’s the first movie that I saw someone that could be me that was really scary, aside from the fact that it’s such a good movie. It was on the other day on TV, and I had my kids with me and we were watching a little bit, and I said, “I’m gonna tell you to look away when it’s a scary part.” And then they were like, “Oh no, it’s fine, mom.” And the The Exorcist came on after, I was like, “OK, now you have to get out because you’re never gonna go in your room if I keep this on TV.” It’s fun, it’s really cool to watch someone seeing horror for the first time at that age, which is how old I was.
PopHorror: Have they seen Halloween 4 yet?
Danielle Harris: They’ve only seen the very end. Well, a couple years ago, I showed them, stupidly, the nightmare scene where Michael (George P. Wilbur, The Running Man 1987) comes out from under the bed. I don’t know why, I just thought, “No one’s dying or getting killed, but it’s still a little spooky,” and that’s the worst thing I could’ve done because my son slept in bed with me for two years after that. So they weren’t quite ready for that. But I showed them the very, very end with Jamie standing at the stairs with blood. I didn’t show them the stabbing part or any of that stuff because they see the pictures. So it was kind of cool for them to see it, but they haven’t watched the whole thing yet. Soon though, a couple of years.
PopHorror: Do you have any final words about Killer Cakes? Why should people watch it?
Danielle Harris: It’s killer! Blumhouse and Cake Boss, you just can’t get any better than that. It’s something that I haven’t seen before, and it’s got Matt Lillard and myself and Nikk Alcaraz, so give it a taste, give it a shot, give it a try.
Thanks for speaking with us, Danielle! Killer Cakes is available for streaming on Prime Video.
