PLOT: A prequel to Friday the 13th focusing on a young Jason Vorhees and his mother, Pamela (Linda Cardellini).
REVIEW: There was a time, a glorious age called the 1980s, when the Friday the 13th franchise was one of the most dependable things in the world. You could expect a new entry in the series to show up almost every year. Additions have been more sporadic since then, and we’ve recently endured the longest rough patch in F13 history. For seventeen long years, ever since the Friday the 13th reboot was released in 2009, the franchise has been bogged down in development hell and legal issues. There have been stretches of time when it looked like Jason Voorhees might never return to the screen at all. So when the TV show Crystal Lake was announced, it almost felt like a miracle. But the road to the series becoming a reality was predictably complicated. Bryan Fuller and Jim Danger Gray were originally at the head of the project before production company A24 decided to go in a different direction. Fuller’s version was reportedly going to be a Hannibal-style reinvention, with each season deconstructing one of the first four Friday the 13th movies. Brad Caleb Kane ultimately became the showrunner, and the series moved from Canada, where Fuller’s take on the concept was gearing up for production, to New Jersey, where the original Friday the 13th was shot.
And now Crystal Lake has finally been released into the world. The Friday the 13th franchise has received its first substantial live-action addition in almost twenty years. And it’s a welcome one that absolutely feels like it was worth the wait.
That doesn’t mean Crystal Lake is perfect. Some decisions will divide fans, some mythology changes might make them shake their heads, and at least one major piece of Jason Voorhees history never should have been delved into in the first place. A couple of episodes are also less interesting than the rest. But overall, it’s a highly enjoyable show. In fact, as of this writing, I’ve already watched the entire season four times.
The most important thing Crystal Lake gets right is Pamela Voorhees. Linda Cardellini takes on a role originally played by Betsy Palmer 46 years ago, giving us a Pamela who feels like a fully realized human being. The original movie gives us only fragments of Pamela’s life. We know she lost her son Jason when he drowned at Camp Crystal Lake, that she blames the counselors and eventually those who want to reopen the camp, and that she has completely unraveled by the time the movie takes place. Here, Cardellini gets an entire season to explore the woman behind that madness.
The show’s Pamela is grieving, protective, frightening, and increasingly unstable. The tragedy in this story isn’t just that she ends up becoming a murderer, but that a mother who lost the person she loves most gradually loses herself as well. The early scenes involving Pamela and young Jason are among the season’s strongest, with the writing giving Jason an innocence that makes the tragedy of his drowning hit harder than ever before.
It’s also interesting that the show presents Jason as a child who can speak and interact with people, which isn’t what every fan has assumed he would be like. (Some books and comics have previously suggested that he was a little creepy from the start.) That choice might not work for every viewer, but I found this version of Jason to be very likeable. He dreams of being an outdoorsman, has a friend, gets picked on by bullies, and loves his mother. Pamela describes their connection as being “joined at the heart,” which is exactly how their relationship should be presented. Unfortunately, the show later introduces friction between them that I didn’t care for. I want Pamela and Jason to remain connected, even as their relationship becomes more disturbing. Their bond is one of the franchise’s most important elements, and it shouldn’t be weakened.
If you have a deep affection for the original Friday the 13th, you’ll probably get more out of Crystal Lake than someone who only knows Jason as the guy in the hockey mask. I absolutely love the sequels and Jason is my favorite slasher icon, but I also think the original movie is underrated and too often overshadowed by what followed. It’s one of the greatest horror movies ever made and one of the creepiest slashers of all time. I watch it multiple times every year. Crystal Lake understands that movie and often feels like an extended love letter to it. It’s reverential of the original Friday the 13th, even when it changes our understanding of things we saw in that film.
As mentioned, this production took the franchise back to New Jersey, using Blairstown as downtown Crystal Lake, just as it was in the 1980 film, and bringing locations from the original movie into the new story. Hartung’s Diner is back, as are familiar characters like Dorf, Ralph, and Enos. Barry and Claudette, the counselors who were the first people to ever get killed in a Friday the 13th movie, are even characters here! The show also recreates moments from the original, sometimes so faithfully that it feels like falling through a portal and landing in 1980. Harry Manfredini’s music returns for the title sequence too, and hearing that familiar sound attached to a new Friday the 13th project is wonderful. Of course, recognizing something from an older movie isn’t enough to make a new story worthwhile. Fortunately, Crystal Lake generally finds ways to give its callbacks new context.
Some of the changes work better than others. The original movies established that Jason drowned in 1957, while Crystal Lake moves the event into the early 1970s. That’s a change I would normally be against, but I can accept it here because it was a legitimate creative choice rather than an arbitrary changing of numbers. Kane wanted to set Crystal Lake in the ‘70s so the show could “touch on all the pop-culture artifacts that were tangential to America from which these movies were born.” He wanted this to be a “mixtape of genre,” covering everything from slasher horror to ABC Afterschool Special drama, martial arts movies (one character is a big Bruce Lee fan and likes to practice throwing his shuriken), and paranoid conspiracy thrillers. The variety can be a strength and a weakness but makes the show feel bigger than a straightforward prequel. The town is populated by people with their own lives and problems even when Jason isn’t lurking nearby.
The supporting cast helps sell that approach. William Catlett’s Chief of Police Levon Brooks is a sympathetic lawman whose relationship with Pamela becomes complicated while his journalist sister Briana Brooks (Devin Kessler) gets drawn into a mystery that’s very different from her normal stories. Gwendolyn Sundstrom makes Jason’s only friend Grace an important emotional part of this season. Cameron Scoggins is entertaining as Officer Dorf who has more depth than you might expect despite being frequently ridiculous. Nick Cordileone captures Walt Gorney’s Ralph’s energy while Hamish Linklater brings something unexpected to this material. Not every storyline works equally well; Linklater’s character is likely to be especially divisive but kept me invested.
One thing that bothered me about this show was its decision to expand Jason’s origin story. I won’t get into specifics but this series gives information about his early years that goes far beyond anything hinted at in previous films. I never wondered about these things nor did I want an explanation; Jason’s mystery has always been part of his appeal. The franchise spent years building him into an almost unknowable figure but now Crystal Lake has revealed something major about his past. I appreciate that this show doesn’t reduce everything about Jason to one scientific explanation still leaving room for him to be mysteriously unique but I don’t think this mythology needed to be part of Friday the 13th.
The pacing isn’t always great; much of episode two revolves around a self-help seminar which fits Kane’s desire to explore early-1970s culture but feels like a detour unlikely to connect with many fans later on when this series devotes an entire episode to Jason’s past bringing present-day stories to halt explaining things that didn’t need explaining.
The directing is mixed; however there’s much to admire here too! Michael Lennox directed three episodes achieving absolute perfection within first thirty-four minutes delivering old-school Friday The 13th -vibes unlike anything we’ve gotten in decades! Next three episodes directed by Celine Held & Logan George contain some season’s best sequences recreating familiar moments both heartwarming & impressive.
The final episodes directed by Quyen Tran are more uneven; origin flashback being my least favorite episode while finale feels rushed being shortest episode entire season which shouldn’t be case! There are strong materials including tense sequences involving Levon Pamela & dangerous outsiders yet some developments handled too quickly as if there was hurry getting end credits!
I didn’t love every minute every storyline or every expansion mythology but loved spending time within world again! Seeing original locations familiar characters hearing Manfredini’s music & watching details from movies brought together within new story made me very happy! It has ups downs yet overall it’s wonderful ride.
I want see Jason back hockey mask going after another group ill-fated youths just much any other fan yet surprised how nice visit Pam again was! There are years Friday The 13th history fill between end season beginning original movie & really hope we get second season explore them.
The post Crystal Lake Review: We Binged Entire First Season appeared first on JoBlo.
