There was a period of time in the ‘80s and ‘90s where audiences could scarcely throw a rock without hitting a new Friday the 13th sequel. After Sean Cunningham’s original low-budget slasher debuted in 1980, a new sequel was made on a near-annual basis for years to come. This continued all the way into the ‘90s, where latter-day projects like the ninth installment, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, or the space-set tenth installment, Jason X, were continuing to release. However, Jason’s hot streak seemed to hit a snag as the new century dawned.
In 2003, Freddy vs. Jason was released, and then it was a whole six years before another entry, the 2009 remake, would be released. Since then, there have been zero Friday the 13th installments, meaning that the franchise has endured its longest drought since its inception, going a full seventeen years without any new material. But now, at long last, that wait is finally over (sort of) as the franchise returns not to the big screen but to the small-streaming-screen with Peacock and A24’s Crystal Lake, a prequel series that just got its first trailer.
Crystal Lake is set for release on the Peacock streaming platform this coming October and centers on the character of Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother. Playing the role of Pamela in the series is none other than fan-favorite genre veteran Linda Cardellini, and the brief but effective trailer gives fans a good look at precisely how bloody and classically slasher-esque the series is going to be.
For those unfamiliar, the original Friday the 13th actually didn’t feature Jason as the antagonist killer, but rather his mother, Pamela. The story was that Jason was a young boy who had been attending Camp Crystal Lake for the summer and tragically drowned when a couple of counselors failed to properly care for him. In retaliation for this, Pamela Voorhees went a little mad and began killing off all of the counselors. In the first film, all of this unfolded in a prologue in 1958, before picking up the story proper in 1980, where a slew of new counselors are attempting to reopen Crystal Lake, only to be once again picked off by the murderous matriarch.
Crystal Lake looks to be telling the tale of that initial wave of killings, adjusting the timeline a bit in the process. In this trailer, a camp counselor makes reference to Jason’s drowning having occurred a year prior, so it would seem that Cardellini’s Pamela stews in her anguish for a bit longer before going full-blown psycho killer on the camp.
Altogether, this is a promising trailer that manages to both sell the series as the return of the iconic franchise and fresh material, in the form of focusing on a Grade-A star taking on the role of a previously underdeveloped and utilized character within the series’ core story. Here’s hoping that Crystal Lake makes the nearly two-decade wait for new blood from the Friday the 13th series worthwhile.
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