How ‘Friday the 13th’ Prequel ‘Crystal Lake’ Puts a Twist on the Voorhees Lore
Fall Preview
Friday the 13th’s machete-wielding, hockey mask-sporting Jason Voorhees may be horror’s ultimate mama’s boy, but it’s the woman who raised him who’s killing it on Crystal Lake, the wickedly inventive prequel series.
Set in the New Jersey hamlet made (in)famous by the slasher franchise, showrunner Brad Caleb Kane (also the showrunner on the IT origin tale Welcome to Derry) has shifted the timeline of Jason’s fateful Camp Crystal Lake drowning from the ‘50s to the ‘70s and cast DTF: St. Louis‘ brilliant and now Emmy-winning Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, the vengefully devoted mother (created by Betsy Palmer) behind the bloody events of the iconic 1980 film.
“I was weaned on those [Friday the 13th] movies and other movies of its kind,” says Kane, who spent his youth soaking in summer-camp bloodshed. “The third Friday the 13th, in 3-D, was my first in the theaters, which my sister took me to, and then I saw every one after that in the theater.” But it’s not just Jason who has his heart. Kane is also literate in the more obscure slashers like The Burning (featuring a young Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter!) and Sleepaway Camp, with its shocking trans twist at the end.
Peacock
“It breaks your brain when you’re a kid and you see that for the first time,” he recalls. “In the early ‘80s, we didn’t have context for body dysmorphia or any of those things that have become topics now today.”
So, it’s fitting that he’s grown up to create something that looks like your classic serial-killer content but feels like the elevated, insightful horror we’re seeing these days. Equally fitting: A24, the studio behind Hereditary, The Witch, St. Maud, and Midsommar, is producing the series.
“It came to me immediately,” he confesses of honoring the original Sean Cunningham film while exploring the deep trauma that led up to it. “When I found out I had the opportunity to pitch a Friday the 13th prequel and that it was a Mrs. Voorhees prequel, immediately I thought, ‘Well, what should that be?’ And it came to me sort of whole hog. I sat down with my journal and I wrote out exactly what I wanted the mythology to be, what I though the backstory should be. I was very well-versed in the movie, so I wanted to make sure it connected to all the touchstones of the movies and that it [also] psychologically tracks with the character we know in the first movie when she appears.”
Opening with the untimely death of her deformed yet sweetly sympathetic son (Callum Vinson), struggling single mom and camp cook Pamela slowly begins to unravel beneath her grief. “You wonder how somebody became Mrs. Voorhees, how she cracked,” continues Kane, hinting that it takes more than Jason’s loss to turn a mom into a monster.
Peacock
“It seems a little simple for her to crack just from Jason drowning unless there was more there to push her over the edge,” he sets up. “So, for me, I wanted to watch the battle between the old self and the new as it fights to emerge.”
And boy does it. With the camp’s reopening — and the introduction of a fascinating new twist in the Voorhees lore — we see that Pamela’s transition “mirrors a little bit what the country was going through,” Kane explains. “The country was going through unprecedented emotional and psychological change in the early ’70s when [we] kind of realized all at once that it could no longer trust the narrative that said, ‘You work hard, you trust in the government, et cetera, et cetera.’ All those old constructs fell apart.”
“People were told ‘You’re on your own, baby,’ which essentially led to the Me Decade,” he continues. “To obsession with the self, self-realization, self-reliance… I wanted to see that transformation in Mrs. Voorhees.”
Peacock
What we won’t see are any new roles being filled by familiar faces from the multiple Fridays that have taken our movie-star slasher (above) from Crystal Lake to Manhattan to space to even a double-bill showdown with Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger. While Kane confirms he had “in-depth conversations” with the first movie’s final girl Adrienne King and discussions about bringing in Kevin Bacon (whose throat iconically met the sharp end an arrow), he’d rather not take viewers out the story by “bringing in too many recognizable people from the original movies… I do want it to be its own ride.”
That said, Kane laughs that “if we’re lucky enough to get a Season 2, I will 100% go back to those people, actors from the original movie. I mean, I’ll say it right here…I’m dying to find Corey Feldman a part!”
Until then, we’ll have to settle for the many Easter Eggs and iterations of characters from the O.G. movie, including Crazy Ralph and the locals at Trudy’s Café, many of whom factor into Pamela’s descent into madness. “It’s not called Mrs. Voorhees and it’s not called Friday the 13th,” Kane states. “The show is called Crystal Lake…so [it’s] about the town’s people, too, not just Pam, and how they respond to the events that happen at Crystal Lake.”
Especially once the bodies, or at least body parts, start to pile up. Because even early on in the series, it’s clear Kane intends to keep this Lake stocked with the gnarliest kills befitting its deadliest residents.
“You can’t skip the gore,” he enthuses. “And you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Crystal Lake, Series Premiere, October 15, Peacock
Watchlist Easy access to only the shows you care about — all in one simple place
Alerts Only important notifications — when a show is returning, when it becomes available to stream, and more.
Special Offers Exclusive products we release related to your favorite shows and streaming services