Danielle Harris Discusses ‘Halloween’ Franchise at Mad Monster Party Q&A

Horror icon Danielle Harris was among the celebrity guests in attendance at the recent Mad Monster Party convention, which took place Feb. 22-24, 2019 in Charlotte, NC, where she discussed her roles in two different eras of the Halloween movie franchise, her thoughts on Halloween 2018, and more.

 Read on for some of the highlights from Danielle’s Q&A from Mad Monster Party 2019, moderated by Levi Tinker, and then see more from Mad Monster Party here.

On Halloween 4 (1988) and Halloween 5 (1989):

I think I was most scared of backing up into that mirror in the costume shop at the drug store (in Halloween 4). It’s this thing called candy glass, like breakable glass, but I don’t think I really got what was going to happen. I actually took it. I thought it was so cool after I had done it and broke it into a million little pieces, that I took all the pieces home in a bag. So that was pretty cool. Who knows where it went. 

…I was more scared where there was a lot of times when I was like waiting around the corner for them to yell ‘action’, and then I’d run around the building or something. I was never scared when I was running around the building and being chased by Michael Myers, but I was scared having to wait around the corner by myself in the dark before they yelled ‘action’, because then there’s no one really around you, you’re just out of sight. 

…That whole scene in the opening of Halloween 5 where I’m in the hospital was done in one take. The sun was coming up and they were like, ‘We have to get this because we’re leaving the hospital’. So they said, ‘Let’s just roll it, and we’ll shoot it, whatever happens happens. So I think from the time where Jamie starts having the nightmare in bed to sitting up into the camera screaming and them coming in and rushing her out was just one take. And we got it, and we moved on.

On returning for Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009):

It was like going back home. I remember day one, and I was in the van going to the set, and Tyler Mane was in the front seat and he had his mask in his hand. And there’s something streaks and tips, it’s like a spray that you spray on yourself to make you look dirty, and it’s very specific and it reminds me of working on Halloween, because it ages your clothes. Tyler had it all over his clothes, and I was like brought right back to making Halloween. It is really kind of a cool thing. 

But I was telling Scout (Tayor Compton), who played Laurie, it’s sort of like I’m passing the torch, this is your thing now.

 …I really liked the remake. I think people bitched about it and then went and saw it five times. I’m a fan of Rob Zombie, so if you’re a fan of his work, I think you’ll really dig it. I miss the classic stuff. I’m really fan of less is more, so I didn’t maybe love that the mask looked like that or that the knife had to be giant, but you know, bigger, badder, it’s Michael Myers. But I think there were some really scary, cool elements. It was shot really dark and fucked up, which I like. But there’s no comparison, because they’re like two totally different things. So I think it’s cool for what it was. 

…I was not a fan of Halloween II (2009). I like my stuff with Brad Dourif. I thought we were kind of in a separate movie from everybody else. There are like three movies going on in that movie. I think he (Zombie) couldn’t figure out which one he wanted to make, so he just made them all, and we just had to kind of guess. 

On Halloween 2018:

I have not seen it yet, but I’ve heard really good things about it, so I do want to see it. 

…It would have been cool (to have a cameo in Halloween 2018), right? I don’t know why they’re so weird about that. The people that are going to go see this movie don’t care about the ‘celebrity’. The people that are going to pay to go see it would probably think it would be awesome if I would be back in it with her (Jamie Lee Curtis). So I don’t know, maybe I don’t have enough Twitter followers or something. I mean maybe if I didn’t do Rob Zombie’s, they would have considered that. I’m not sure. There’s really very little consistency with this franchise. 

Harris also told the crowd that her personal favorite films that she’s worked on are the 1996 Disney TV movie Wish Upon a Star co-starring Katherine Heigl and director Jim Mickle’s excellent 2010 vampire drama Stake Land.

You can watch video highlights from the Feb. 22, 2019 Q&A with Danielle Harris at Mad Monster Party and see some exclusive images in our photo gallery below.

[See all of our Mad Monster Party 2019 coverage here.]

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