The eight episodes of Crystal Lake debuts on Peacock on October 15. This is a mostly spoiler-free review, but if you don’t want to know anything about the series, best to click out of here.
It’s a tricky thing telling a prequel story. Not only do fans of the prequel know the end point of the story being told, but they also already have preconceived ideas about the subject. how the events that led to their beloved original have occurred. Essentially, the creators of a prequel already have the deck stacked against them before they even put pen to paper. Or, in the case of Crystal Lake – the new Friday the 13th prequel series – put the knife to your throat.
But then again, a prequel can work well when it figures out how to color (with blood in this case) within the lines of the larger canon while developing its own world, filled with endearing characters, a new story worth investing in, and enough twists and turns to keep your eyes on the screen (before a few of them inevitably pop up or get punctured). It also doesn’t hurt to have a cast led by the always great (and recent Emmy winner) Linda Cardellini.
Cardellini plays Pamela Voorhees, a character that your horror fan friend is always so proud to remind you of – just in case you forgot – was actually the killer from the first film. Friday the 13th moviebefore his more famous son, Jason, took over Part 2. Originally played by Betsy Palmer, Pamela was driven insane when the boy drowned at Camp Crystal Lake summer camp due to the negligence of two camp counselors, ultimately driving the grieving mother on a killing spree in this first film…before she faced her own unfortunate demise.
This is the long and short story of Pamela since her debut in the 1980 film, but now showrunner Brad Caleb Kane (who is also a writer-producer on This: Welcome to Derry) and Cardellini give us a very different vision of Pam. Unlike Palmer’s campy job, Cardellini’s Pam is a fully fleshed-out character that you actually root for, even as the how and why of her ending up in Crystal Lake with her young son — yes, Jason is there — is slowly revealed over the course of these eight episodes.
It’s a little difficult to delve into the ins and outs of this series without giving away the various fun surprises that await those who stick with it, but I will say that I really had to let episode 1 slide before I was ready to continue with the rest of the series. This is largely due to the inclusion of 11-year-old Jason (played by Callum Vinson), who is portrayed as just an ordinary little kid who happens to be physically different from the other kids at the camp. Caleb Kane and his production team manage to find a balance between Jason’s different looks which are constantly incompatible Friday the 13th film series has given us over the decades. But it’s also a little off-putting at first to see this little kid just being, well, a regular little kid saying stuff like “Yes, I’m reading this.” entire thing this evening! As he raises his new machete, part of the camping kit Pam ordered for him, into the air, well…
But then Cardellini and Vinson have some really tender moments together, and you feel bad for wishing Jason was just the mute, mutated monster from the films. It’s a prequel, after all, and you know we’ll get there eventually! And indeed, Caleb Kane reminds us of this when Jason soon disappears from the picture, as cinematic destiny ordained.
So what Crystal Lake is really about is how Pam goes from a normal, loving mother to the unmuted, unmutated, but definitive monster she will be when she one day puts an arrow through Kevin Bacon’s throat, among other dastardly acts. The character’s slow descent is methodically traced over the course of this season, as she must deal not only with the loss of her son but also with her mysterious past which has come back to haunt her… and for which she seems more than up to the task, at least physically. Jason must have learned his skills with a blade somewhere!
The series populates its cast with city dwellers and campers with varying degrees of effectiveness. Cameron Scoggins as the not-too-smart Officer Dorf – a legacy character from the movies! – is a lot of fun, as Gwendolyn Sundstrom plays Grace, Jason’s troubled young friend. The latter is a character who adds a new layer to what we thought we knew about Jason’s origin story; she serves as Jason’s replacement of sorts for Pamela after her son leaves, for better or worse. Some of the other townspeople, however, are less interesting and feel a little too “supporting TV actors” for their own good.
Yet the most notable of the bunch beyond Cardellini is William Catlett as Sheriff Levon Brooks, who, like Pam, has a troubled past that he’d rather not dredge up, even if he can’t shake it completely. His empathy for Pam leads to a strong relationship between the two, with both actors finding different nuances in playing it. How much does Pam really care about Levon, versus how much is she using him to protect herself from any suspicion regarding the increasing number of violent incidents occurring in the town? Cardellini never lets him fully understand.
And speaking of those incidents… Crystal Lake doesn’t hold back on bloodshed, kicking off with a pretty crazy fight scene in the pilot episode that goes from scary to funny and back again. I haven’t counted, but almost every episode contains some sort of gory and crazy tour de force scene that will make you gasp or laugh…or both, depending on how you feel about such things.
Caleb Kane and his writers certainly know the source material, and they write intelligently in and around the events that will eventually happen in the films (a rewatch of the original Friday the 13th is especially worth it for fans, if not necessary). As Crystal Lake nears the end of these eight episodes, some of those same fans might be frustrated with some of the developments, adjustments, or additions to Jason’s overall universe, while others will be gratified by how it all played out. But you know what they say: You can’t make a Friday the 13th prequel without killing off some horny teenagers – or annoying a few fans.
Gn entert
