We’re almost exactly one month away from the premiere of Crystal Lake, and Peacock is celebrating the 13th with a full trailer, new poster, and fresh images from the Friday the 13th prequel series.
All eight episodes of Peacock and A24’s Friday the 13th prequel series will premiere on Thursday, October 15, filling in the bloody gap between Jason Voorhees’ drowning and Pamela Voorhees’ eventual massacre at Camp Crystal Lake.
The new poster puts Linda Cardellini (The Curse of La Llorona) front and center as Pamela, with young Jason lingering ominously in her arms. I like that he’s being kept slightly out of sight because the trailer makes one thing abundantly clear: This is Pamela’s story, even if Jason remains the driving force behind everything that happens.
Set nearly one year after Jason drowned in Crystal Lake, the series finds Pamela unable to shake the grief of losing her sickly young son. When two strangers arrive at her door asking questions about her past, they set off a disturbing chain of events that leaves the townspeople wondering who Pamela Voorhees really is.
Pamela has always been the most fascinating character in those early films, and I’ve spent years wondering why she wasn’t more of a motivation for Jason in the same way Jason was for her. It always felt like a missed opportunity. If Crystal Lake wants to indulge in a little revisionist history and make that relationship a more meaningful part of the mythology, I’m more than happy to pretend it was always there.
The trailer itself has a distinct made-for-television feel, almost like Bates Motel filtered through the mythology of Friday the 13th. It also gives us several new looks at Callum Vinson (Chucky) as Jason, including a brief shot of what appears to be a slightly older, possibly undead version of the boy.
We also see Cardellini wearing Pamela’s familiar blue sweater (pictured above), which feels like some pretty aggressive foreshadowing. Based on how this is all being structured, I’m starting to wonder if the final episode will essentially remake Sean S. Cunningham’s original Friday the 13th, opening the door for another season, a continuation, or even a new series of movies.
But there’s one moment in the trailer that may piss off longtime fans.
During a heated exchange, a character warns Pamela, “What do you think the good people of Crystal Lake would say if they knew what you and Jason really were.”
What the hell does that mean?
The line is accompanied by imagery that appears to show some sort of laboratory hallway, giving the sequence a surprisingly Stranger Things-esque sci-fi flavor. Is the series suggesting that Pamela and Jason were experimented on? Is it creating a supernatural explanation for Jason’s survival, resurrection, or eventual transformation into the unstoppable undead slasher we know?
Part of my concern is that the filmmakers may be trying too hard to explain inconsistencies that have existed since the beginning of the franchise. Jason is still a child when he erupts from Crystal Lake during Alice Hardy’s final scare in the 1980 film, yet by the events of 1981’s Friday the 13th Part 2, he has somehow grown into an adult man wearing a sack over his head.
Has Crystal Lake invented a reason for that transformation? Is the series going to explain why Adrienne King (Friday the 13th) sees young Jason burst from the lake, or whether that moment was a nightmare, a vision, or something that actually happened? These are questions the franchise has always been content to leave buried beneath the water, and I’m slightly worried the series is about to overexplain mythology that never needed to make perfect sense.
Obviously, we haven’t seen the show yet, and the trailer could be deliberately misleading us. But that one line is sticking out like a sore thumb. For all intents and purposes, this series is being presented as canon, which makes any potential reinvention of Jason’s origin a pretty massive swing.
The trailer looks good. It looks fun. I’m genuinely curious to see where this goes, especially if the final episode brings us directly into the events of the original movie. But if Crystal Lake really is about to drag Jason Voorhees into laboratories, experiments, and overt science fiction, horror fans are going to have some feelings.
Created and run by Brad Caleb Kane (It: Welcome to Derry), Crystal Lake also stars William Catlett (Abigail), Devin Kessler, Cameron Scoggins (Shades of Blue), and Gwendolyn Sundstrom (Evil). Michael Lennox (Derry Girls), Celine Held and Logan George (Topside), and Quyen Tran (The Sympathizer) directed the eight episodes.
Watch the full trailer below and tell me what you think. Are you ready for Crystal Lake to rewrite Jason Voorhees’ origin?
Categorized:News Streaming / Home Video Trailer