The Friday the 13th franchise has always had an unspoken rule about not looking back too closely on the mythology established by the original film. In a way, the open-ended (not to mention contradictory) lore behind the drowning and subsequent return of Jason Voorhees is supposed to harken back to the urban legends and campfire stories that you might actually hear at a place like Crystal Lake. That’s why, with few exceptions, most filmmakers tended to shy away from attempting to untangle the killer’s messy backstory.
With that in mind, it makes sense that the full trailer for Peacock’s upcoming Crystal Lake TV show is blowing up online, as fans have a lot to say about the latest preview and its unexpected teasing of both a bag-headed Jason Voorhees and an implied sci-fi explanation for his “condition.”
From what we can gather from brief snippets of footage (as well as dialogue hinting that there’s more to this family than meets the eye), it’s implied that Pamela Voorhees and her ill-fated offspring have some kind of history with a secretive research facility that looks a lot like it might be engaging in MK Ultra experiments.
For our less conspiracy-minded readers, MK Ultra was a real life government program that was initiated in the 1950s and engaged in controversial experimentation involving mind control, chemically-induced torture and -allegedly- serial killer studies. When the public first caught wind of this secretive program, the news ended up inspiring popular genre stories by writers like Stephen King and Robert Ludlum. These days, however, most folks know about MK Ultra because of its role in the creation of Stranger Things, with this connection actually driving some fans to accuse Crystal Lake of actively stealing from Netflix’s cash cow.
As is usually the case with retcons, adding sci-fi elements to the Friday the 13th franchise is a risky move that -understandably- has a lot of people up in arms, but I’d argue that these additions aren’t as much of a reach as you might initially think. Not only does the timeline match, but the MK Ultra serial killer angle was part of the cultural zeitgeist that originated the series in the first place. Plus, having Jason Voorhees be the result of government experimentation is no less ridiculous than reframing him as a Deadite or a zombie fueled by lightning bolts.
At the end of the day, fans can still mix and match their favorite elements of the franchise mythology like we’ve been doing since the 1980s.
Of course, we’ll only really know how the story plays out when Crystal Lake finally releases on October 15, though I have a feeling that there’s a lot more going on with this show than the trailers would have you believe (especially with characters referencing how the lake never gives up her dead).
For now, why not share your own theories with us in the comments below?
