Horror is a genre built on conflict. Sure, this appears in the literal clashing of protagonists and their monstrous villains, but this genre’s many subgenres also play on conflicting themes to create truly shocking displays of fear. There are horror comedies, supernatural found-footage movies — and even horrifying, deliciously gory baked goods, like the ones in Prime Video’s Killer Cakes.
Created by Ruth Amsel and the famous Blumhouse, this October special sees terror-loving bakers from across America coming together for a cooking competition like no other. It shows that even the tasty can be disgusting in how these expert artists sculpt their baked creations into something worthy of any horror movie. And they’re not the only ones bringing scares to the table! Because this two-episode special also recruited some true horror legends to not only judge the creations, but give advice to these professionals on how to create the most sickening scenes they can for a grand prize of $20,000. It’s a chillingly delicious take on both genres, and it just released its first trailer!
Who’s Judging Killer Cakes?
All of the best cooking competitions are filled with an esteemed panel of judges who have the experience to back up their critiques, and Killer Cakes is no different. Starting off the terrifying trio that makes up its panel is Nikk Alcaraz, a baker renowned for his haunting yet mouth-watering creations. He brings a technical knowledge to the competition that ensures each contestant’s creations are as delicious as they are disgusting, with the man being celebrated by dozens of culinary publications and shows for how he turns flavorful goods into frightening monstrosities. He delivers an in-depth understanding of how to make things terrifying — something that his fellow judge, Danielle Harris, knows well.
The famous Scream Queen started out her career as the young protagonist Jamie Lloyd in the Halloween franchise, her decades-spanning filmography seeing her take on some of horror’s biggest villains. From Victor Crowley, to Urban Legend-obsessed killers, to the silent monolith himself, Michael Meyers, she’s conquered them all (usually) and knows what each of these cakes needs to make them legitimately disturbing. She’s a true icon of the genre, and she’s not the only legend that this special brought in!
It’s hard to codify just what an impact Matthew Lillard has had on the modern horror genre. While most fans remember him most for his role as Stu Macher in Wes Craven’s masterpiece, Scream, it’s awe-inspiring how this actor has managed to offer some new, terrifying performance for each generation of fans. Whether it be Stu in Scream, the psychic Dennis in Thirteen Ghosts, or his most recent horror role as Five Nights At Freddy’s William Afton, his influence on the medium is unmatched. It makes sense that he’s the host of Killer Cakes, with the trailer showing the star giddily taste each rotted masterpiece and push his players to create their most petrifying baked good yet. His role is to help each of the contestants become even better, but if the trailer is any indication, it’s questionable how much scarier these genuinely killer cakes can get!
‘Killer Cakes’ Has a Whole Host of Horrors in Store
Even with just a trailer, Killer Cakes has already presented a cavalcade of baked terrors like nothing its viewers have ever seen before. Its contestants stand proudly in their introductions, with snippets between their presentations to the judges explaining how passionate they are about both horror and baking. While there have been scary-themed baking shows before, it’s clear how thrilled these players are to be in a series that shirks digestibility in favor of gut-churning examples of just how sickening baking can be.
And they’re even more excited to combine their two passions in this competition, which the rest of the trailer shows them do to a sickening degree. From fake ice coolers filled with bleeding, edible organs, to the entire torso of a pig-headed serial killer, these clips reveal the shocking ideas that our team of bakers will be working hard to bring to life. And they won’t be alone in trying to bring these twisted dreams to frosted perfection! Because, luckily for all of these contestants, they’ll be having some of the biggest names in the Horror industry right there by their side.
Not only is the entire series created by Blumhouse — reflected in the eerie, decrepit asylum that the entire competition takes place in — but the players will be aided by some of the biggest special effects artists today. The trailer spotlights the famous special effects artists who’ll be helping our bakers at every gory step: Ashley Levy (Insidious: The Red Door, Happy Death Day) and Tom Woodruff (Smile, Aliens). This pair offers a mechanical understanding to the horror that fans love seeing onscreen, translating their large-scale scares into smaller (some would say bite-sized) versions of the effects that fill their movies.
It adds another layer to the already sickening effects these bakers can already create, with each clip from the trailer showing how they use the bakers’ concoctions to cover some genuinely unnerving special effects, and even some full-on moving robots! Just like every other person in the special, they offer their wealth of expertise in a way that only Horror’s best could. It helps create an endlessly interesting, utterly horror-filled baking competition, one that breaks all boundaries and brings out the best of both genres.
‘Killer Cakes’ Is Nothing You’ve Ever Seen Before
While there have been creepy cooking competitions before, this trailer makes it clear: there’s never been anything like Killer Cakes. Sure, the Food Network is filled with great baking competitions every Halloween season that encourages chefs to flex the creepier aspects of their tasty ideas. But so often these are sanitized for a general audience, the spooky creations carrying some general motif of the season rather than genuinely trying to unnerve those watching. This makes some great looking haunted houses and cupcakes covered in spiders, but rarely do these shows really allow for truly disgusting — in appearance, not in taste — things to be made. This competition subverts all of this standard and, in doing so, becomes a cooking competition made by horror fans for horror fans. This shows in every grotesque creation, with the trailer alone offering jaw-dropping examples of these bakers using their culinary knowledge to make bleeding, oozing, rotting baked goods — that, based on the judge’s reactions, taste oh so sweet. It’s a one-of-a-kind baking special that is perfect for Halloween!
Killer Cakes Premieres on Amazon Prime Video on October 8th, 2024.
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