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In October of 2022, A24 announced plans to make a Friday the 13th prequel with Bryan Fuller at the helm. Individually, we love most of those words. A24 continues to produce and distribute some of our favorite movies, including Marty Supreme, Backrooms, and The Invite. Ever since he got his start writing for Star Trek: Voyager and Deep Space Nine, Bryan Fuller has been one of our favorite creatives, thanks to shows such as Pushing Daisies and Hannibal. Yet, wonderful as they are, A24 and Fuller initially seemed like bad fits for Friday the 13th, perhaps the most crassly simplistic slasher franchise of the ’80s.
While various production choices have given us hope, including the addition of the always-reliable Linda Cardellini as Jason’s mother Pamela, our fears about the series were not assuaged until the first teaser for the show. Yes, there’s an A24 logo, and, no, there’s baritone voice over. But everything else feels like it was pulled from a trailer that would have played before a random Paramount release in the 1980s: a cheery song sang by children, gauzy shots of skinny people looking out on the titular lake, and people turning toward the camera and screaming as the screen turns red. In short, Crystal Lake looks like a trashy slasher, as it should be.
As established in the first Friday the 13th movie from 1980, Pamela Voorhees (originally played by Betsy Palmer, and then by Nana Visitor in the 2009 remake) came to Camp Crystal Lake as a cook. After her son Jason drowns in 1957 because of two counselors making out instead of watching him, Pamela took revenge. The murders gave the camp the nickname “Camp Blood,” and caused it to be closed down for 13 years, until new owners tried to rebrand it in the first movie.
Almost immediately after the first film, the Friday the 13th timeline became convoluted, especially since 1981’s Part II revealed that Jason had not died, that he had been hanging out in the woods, and saw his mother get beheaded by final girl Alice Hardy.
Between those inconsistencies and bare bones backstory, Friday the 13th was primed for a pretentious and convoluted prequel. Fuller left the project in 2024, to be replaced by Bradley Caleb Kane as showrunner. While Kane has done solid work as a writer for programs such as Fringe, Lodge 49, and It: Welcome to Derry, one could also imagine a modern TV professional repeating the Surf Dracula Phenomenon, making a show that builds up to the thing we want instead of just giving it to us each episode.
Certainly, Crystal Lake won’t give us the thing we ultimately want: Jason putting on his hockey mask and bending teenagers backwards. But the trailer seems to say that the show will give us everything else. Pamela’s got a big ol’ knife and she’s going to stick it into some dumb, sex-ed up teens all summer long.
Is that enough to sustain a full season of television? Who knows! But it’s enough to satisfy slasher fans, and they should be the primary concern for anyone making a Friday the 13th property, no matter how many television geniuses and boutique labels are involved.
Crystal Lake streams on Peacock on October 15, 2026.
The post Crystal Lake Teaser Promises Friday the 13th Prequel Will Be Just a Slasher (Complimentary) appeared first on Den of Geek.
