The Friday the 13th franchise is one of my comfort watch collections. They are campy flicks where you know what to expect but still get enough mystery around the character of Jason to feed the imagination. They are slasher horror films with supernatural roots. Peacock’s Crystal Lake is a prequel series that goes back to Camp Crystal Lake and the events around Jason’s origin and Pamela Voorhees’ connection to the first film. The show is a near perfect table-setter, and it is that “near perfect” that left me enjoying the show but also questioning its necessity.
First, before getting into spoiler-free specifics, let me say that Linda Cardellini should be a first-call casting. She was great as Pam Voorhees and had me flipping from “what a sweet lady” to “holy hell” in the same scene. To the powers that be, please put her in more stuff; we will all be better for it.
Okay, as for Crystal Lake, the show is a well made period piece set in the 70’s. The sets, look, and feel throughout the entire show never break and wholly transport the viewer back to that time. Initially, you are treated to a fascinating look at the town and people of Crystal Lake, New Jersey before the events of the first film. It is your typical small town where everybody knows everyone, and there is the usual cast of characters, from upstanding business owners to the star high school football player. Noticeably standing out, however, is a young Jason Voorhees, a sweet boy who has physical deformities that make him a target for bullies. To help him live as normal a life as possible, Pam makes him attend the summer camp where she works, the aforementioned Camp Crystal Lake. If you know how the story goes, something happens to Jason due to the negligence of the teenage camp counselors. Per the movie, the discovery of the counselors’ misdeeds leads to their murder and the camp shutting down. Crystal Lake, however, gives the whole story, and there are more subtleties than you would expect. Simply watching the violent events unfold would be enough to solidify the aura surrounding Camp Crystal Lake and set the stage for the events of the first film, but the show goes deeper.
One of the things that makes Jason Voorhees so scary is that you do not fully know why he is the way he is. He should not exist, yet here is this unstoppable behemoth of a thing whose only purpose is to kill while not being able to be killed itself. To think there could be such a force in the world is, well, terrifying. We shudder at the thought of what we cannot understand or escape. The presence of mystery, the unexplainable, in a world where information is so readily available can be unsettling, and that is the essence of Jason, always present and unexplainable. Crystal Lake spends pieces of each episode, and then an entire one, explaining how Jason came to be and how he is this relentless force that eventually ends up in space (..the movies lost me by that point). Frankly, I do not think I (or we, fans of the franchise) needed that. It is a fascinating story, but not knowing was an acceptable part of Jason’s story. The mystery made him all the more terrifying. Removing that mystery and pulling back the curtain on what Jason is, is what makes Crystal Lake “near perfect”.
Featured Image: Shutterstock 2507738609 (esthermm)
