Crystal Lake Is a Surprisingly Good Friday the 13th Prequel Series

Hollywood hasn’t unleashed Jason Voorhees on horror movie audiences since 2009. Back then, Jason had mostly been reduced to a Flanderized version of himself in entertaining cash grabs like Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason. The 2009 reboot, titled simply Friday the 13th, attempted to relaunch the franchise from a fresh slate. It failed miserably despite making a killing at the box office and set the entire franchise back for over a decade.

In the years since, Hollywood has struggled to bring Jason back to theaters, mostly due to complex rights issues over the character and his iconic hockey mask. But in 2026, Jason is finally back. A new series from A24 and Peacock, titled Crystal Lake after the body of water where Jason drowned as a boy and later emerged as a monster, serves as a prequel. It depicts Jason’s tragic death and how it pushes his mother, Pamela Voorhees, past the point of no return.

Crystal Lake does not feature the iconic hockey mask due to legal issues, but it offers a smorgasbord of new plot details to help explain how Jason becomes Jason and Pamela becomes the killer in the original Friday the 13th. Along the way, the series introduces many plot changes and secret backstories. Some of these choices are fun, while others may feel sacrilegious to diehard fans.

The show exists because intellectual property management, copyright expiration dates, streaming services demanding endless content, and capitalism exist. Are these good reasons to make a television series? Not really. Nonetheless, Crystal Lake is a decent show if viewers can put those bigger complaints aside for a few hours.

Crystal Lake was initially announced in 2022 with Bryan Fuller of Hannibal and Pushing Daisies as showrunner. Fuller explained that moving the franchise from film to streaming freed him from the complex rights issues that had bogged Jason down. In 2024, Fuller was fired after reports suggested A24 wanted to take the story in a different direction. Brad Caleb Kane, known as the lead male singing voice in Disney’s animated Aladdin movies, signed on as the new showrunner a few months later. In 2025, Linda Cardellini of Freaks and Geeks joined the cast as Pamela Voorhees.

Kane does his best to tell an entertaining story on his own terms, despite the turbulent behind-the-scenes history required to revive the franchise.

Crystal Lake begins on the day Jason dies, which Kane shifts from 1957 to 1971. Callum Vinson plays the young boy covered in prosthetics that give him a bulging, bald head matching the terrifying design from the original film’s final scene. Jason drowns while camp counselors busy hooking up in a supply shed fail to watch him. Pamela, who lived alone with her son and worked as a camp cook, quickly dissolves into trauma and grief.

From here, Crystal Lake operates on multiple tracks. Pamela’s story expands in both directions through flashbacks and exposition dumps that reveal where she and Jason came from before arriving at the lake, while her present-day actions become increasingly erratic and violent. Kane also explores life in 1970s small-town America through various townspeople, building a roster of characters for Pamela to murder.

The town feels like a Stephen King story, drawing inevitable comparisons to Welcome to Derry. Both are prequel shows to iconic horror movies that rely on including one eye-popping moment of ghoulish violence in each episode. Pamela kills various people who threaten her or get in her way, turning into a villain long before stalking teenagers at the summer camp. Cardellini makes her a sympathetic serial killer, making it impossible to hate her even when she murders innocent people.

Did Friday the 13th really need a prequel?

The show gets interesting and potentially controversial when it attempts to fill in Pamela and Jason’s backstory. An original story explains unanswered questions regarding Jason’s background. The answers are intriguing, even if they sometimes feel arbitrary like fan fiction rather than a definitive origin story. One episode shot like a David Cronenberg thriller stands out as a series highlight that will likely amaze and offend audiences in equal measure.

If finding out why Jason became Jason and why his mother snapped intrigues you, Crystal Lake provides an entertaining attempt at answers. If the entire exercise offends you, another Friday the 13th reboot will likely wipe the slate clean in another decade, assuming Hollywood untangles the franchise copyright.

All eight episodes of Crystal Lake release Oct. 15 on Peacock.

Source: Polygon