Coming to Peacock this Halloween season, the new prequel series “Crystal Lake” will tell the origin story of Pamela Voorhees and her young son Jason Voorhees, the franchise for the first time ever digging into the mythology BEFORE the events of the original Friday the 13th.
Does that mean “Crystal Lake” isn’t really a slasher series in the way that the Friday the 13th movies are slasher movies? And does Pamela Voorhees do any killing in those earlier years?
According to showrunner Brad Caleb Kane, Pam indeed goes “full Friday the 13th” in the series.
Brad Caleb Kane explains during a panel this week, “You watch the first four episodes, and you go ‘Okay. They are telling a story, and there’s a little bit of paranoid conspiracy thriller here, and it’s a psychological devolution or evolution, however you want to put it; but where’s Friday the 13th‘?” Pam goes full Friday the 13th in this season, and you will see it.”
He continues, “There are a series of kills that are everything the movies do, and, hopefully, it will satisfy the real hunt hack‑and‑slash fans, too; we build to it, but it’s coming.”
That being said, expect something far different than the traditional Friday the 13th movie.
Caleb Kane told the crowd at the sneak peek event yesterday, “I think the biggest conceptual issue was people know what to expect from a Friday the 13th, or at least they know what a Friday the 13th movie should be. Teens go out to a place, they are having sex and doing drugs, and then they are hunted by Mrs. Voorhees or Jason in the subsequent films. But, thankfully, we weren’t making a Friday the 13th movie. They are going to make another Friday the 13th movie, which I’m sure will be Friday the 13th to the max; but this was called Crystal Lake, and we were doing a story about the town and a prequel about Jason’s mom, and it was really fresh snow.”
“We could build it however we wanted,” the showrunner continues. “And feeling ownership for the franchise as a long‑time fan and a lover of it, truly die‑hard lover, I kind of knew what I wanted to see as a grown‑up Friday the 13th fan, as somebody who these movies opened doors for me and opened my eyes and I was thrilled watching them with thousand‑seaters full of people yelling at the screen. But I also grew up a little bit and became interested in other films and other themes in films, and I wanted to bring all of that cinema love to my love for Friday the 13th.
“So I was really given carte blanche, but I wanted also to honor the fans of those original movies and myself as an original fan of those movies by giving as many Easter eggs as made sense within the context of this story as possible, and I think we did that a lot. We re‑create things, which I won’t spoil here.”
All episodes of “Crystal Lake” premiere October 15 on Peacock.
The series follows single mother Pam Voorhees who has been unable to shake her grief after her young, sickly son Jason tragically drowned in the town lake almost a year before. When two strangers arrive at Pam’s door digging into her past, a disturbing chain of events is set into motion, leaving the townspeople of Crystal Lake wondering: just who is Pam Voorhees?
Linda Cardellini stars as Pamela Voorhees, a mother who gave up a singing career to raise her special needs child, only to take a dark turn when she loses her son — Jason.
Callum Vinson (“Chucky”) is playing young Jason Voorhees in “Crystal Lake.”
