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The Good and Bad Of Crystal Lake
Image Credit: Matt Infante/PEACOCK
The Good and Bad of Crystal Lake
Warning: this review contains spoilers
Crystal Lake, created by Brad Caleb Kane and produced by A24 and released in the United States on the Peacock streaming platform, is the highly anticipated horror TV series based on the classic Friday the 13th movie series. Featuring a story that functions as a sort of prequel to the 1980 original Friday the 13th slasher flick written by Victor Miller and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, Crystal Lake premiered on Thursday October 15th, 2026 with all eight episodes of season one released at the same time. The show stars Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, the character that was originally played by Betsy Palmer in the 1980 Friday the 13th. Pamela is the mother to Jason Voorhees, the child that drowned at Camp Crystal Lake and who would eventually become the legendary canvas sack hood and then hockey mask wearing killer in the Friday the 13th sequels (Jason is played as a child in Crystal Lake by Callum Vinson and then by Jonathan Tison as an older Jason). While using a good chunk of the 1980 original movie and bits and pieces of the Steve Miner directed sequel Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Crystal Lake messes with the “established timeline” set up in the movies, changing the year Jason drowned to the 1970s and going from there. On top of that, Crystal Lake shows who Pamela was before she became a mother and provides an explanation for how Jason became Jason. There’s also a bunch of stuff concerning the town of Crystal Lake and some of the people living there, including the town’s sheriff, Levon Brooks (William Catlett), his journalist sister Brianna (Devin Kessler), a young girl that was Jason’s best friend before he drowned, Grace (Gwendolyn Sundstrom), town nut job Ralph aka Crazy Ralph (Nick Cordileone), and several other people you meet in the town diner.
It took me three days to watch all eight episodes, which may be a record for me when it comes to a new streaming show that releases all of its episodes at the same time. That’s about as close to a “binge watch” as I get. Perhaps I watched it that quickly because, as a Friday the 13th/Jason fan, it was exciting to have new Friday the 13th/Jason stuff to watch and I couldn’t wait. Maybe. I don’t know. I do know that I have some opinions about the show. And that’s what this latest The Good and the Bad… entry is all about. What’s good about Crystal Lake and what’s bad about Crystal Lake, according to me?
And so, without any further what have you, what’s good and what’s bad about Crystal Lake?
The Good
Linda Cardellini as Pamela: I will admit that I thought it was weird when Cardellini was announced as playing Pamela Voorhees, mostly because it just didn’t seem like something she would do. I mean, sure, it’s an A24 show and A24 has a bit of hip and edgy prestige attached to its name, but Crystal Lake was a show based on Friday the 13th. Even in a world where the horror genre is starting to garner more and more respect in big deal Hollywood, being a part of a slasher movie franchise that is still considered by some “artist” types to be pornography seemed like a weird career move. I mean, outside of some genre awards and whatnot, Crystal Lake will probably not be a show that gets any mainstream awards recognition at all. Why the heck would Cardellini do the show? Money? Did she actually like the material? What was going on here?
Well, regardless of why she did the show, I’m glad she did because Cardellini is fantastic as Pamela. In one scene you can see how devoted she is to her son Jason and how much she loves him, and then in the next you can see how the grief of losing her son has emotionally destroyed her, and then in the next scene she tries to interact with people in town in a “normal” way, and then in the next scene she’s knocking some woman’s jaw off with a meat tenderizer. And it all fits together brilliantly. You love her, you root for her, and you cringe when she decides to murder someone. And then there are the scenes where she channels Betsy Palmer’s unhinged “Kill her, Mommy!” moments from the first movie and both pays homage to Palmer and makes them all her own.
Cardellini also manages to homage Palmer again by wearing a light blue sweater and, despite it being an obvious callback to the first movie, it somehow doesn’t even feel like fan service. Cardellini’s Pamela just really likes wearing that light blue sweater and it doesn’t come off as a weird at all.
And then there’s her performance in the controversial episode seven, which is mostly a flashback story explaining how all of this bullshit started. This episode may be her best work in the show. You see Cardellini go through every emotion in this episode and she just knocks every scene out of the park. Even when you may not like what the heck is happening, you will appreciate Cardellini’s performance. Just amazing stuff.
With the way the season ends, just how unhinged will Pamela get in season 2? I definitely want to see what’s next for her.
William Catlett as Sheriff Levon Brooks: Sheriff Levon Brooks is a former big city cop that got caught up in a big hooha cop corruption scandal, got his ass kicked, and ended up in Crystal Lake because it was basically the only place that would allow him to still be a cop of some sort. And while he does like being the sheriff in Crystal Lake, it’s obvious that he’s bored out of his goddamn mind there and has to find hobbies to fill up his days because there just isn’t all that much to do in Crystal Lake. He takes up whittling, he paints little figures and models in his office, and he’s going to try to remain content with all of that.
And then Jason drowns, Pamela keeps trespassing at the closed camp (she stands in the same place on the dock every day, hoping to remain close to her missing son), and dead bodies start piling up. What the hell, man? Crystal Lake isn’t supposed to be like that.
The first time you see Catlett as Sheriff Brooks, you will notice that he’s giving his small town sheriff character a gravitas that you just don’t expect to see in that type of character, and that’s before you know anything about his past. You immediately start to wonder what his deal is. Who the heck is this guy and how the heck did he end up in Crystal Lake? And when you find out who he is and what is in his past, you’re amazed that he’s still a good guy and not some sort of cynical asshole. You’re also amazed that he’s able to maintain his composure while dealing with all of the bullshit he has to deal with when the nasty stuff starts happening over and over again in town. His deputy seems like a real dipshit most of the time, and when he interacts with his old friends from Newark, you wonder why the hell Sheriff Brooks just doesn’t beat the shit out of them. You wouldn’t blame Sheriff Brooks if he did.
Catlett also has tremendous chemistry with Cardellini, which is essential since Sheriff Brooks has a thing for Pamela. At first, the idea of them being a couple seems way too weird and you just know that it will end in disaster. But then you see them interact with one another more and more, and it somehow seems both right and wrong at the same time (they make for a nice couple, sure, but you also know that Pamela Voorhees is a murderer and Sheriff Brooks is a cop and that just isn’t going to work out in the end. It just won’t).
The season ends with Sheriff Brooks seriously injured after a shootout in the sheriff’s office and it’s unclear if he survives. I’m going to assume that he does and that we will see him again in season 2. Will he still be the sheriff? Will he still want to be the sheriff? Much like seeing what happens next with Cardellini’s Pamela, I can’t wait to see what’s next for Catlett’s Levon Brooks.
Callum Vinson as kid Jason: As a full on Friday the 13th/Jason nerd, I have to say that the idea of seeing Jason as a kid, interacting with other kids, and talking is weird as hell. Outside of some grunts and the occasional “what the hell is going on here?” moments like in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) when Jason screams at the end of the movie right before he is destroyed by toxic waste in the sewers of “New York City” and when he apparently talks after jumping into another body in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993) we haven’t heard Jason say anything. Heck, even when there was a fake Jason, like in Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985) where “Jason” was Roy, just some guy, “Jason” didn’t say anything. And “Jason”/Roy got his hand cut off, stabbed multiple times, and eventually fell to his death. You’d think “Jason”/Roy would have uttered something going through all of that. So, when Callum Vinson started talking in episode 1 of Crystal Lake, interacting with his Mom Pamela, it was strange and wild and insane. Was this actually happening?
Yes, it was happening and it was amazing. Jason, the eventual hulking zombie monster, was a “normal” kid at one point. Sure, Jason was physically “different” and got shit from most of the other kids, like that one fat kid, but kids can be awful. There was nothing really wrong with Jason. All he wanted to do was be a kid and do kid things. And Vinson managed to humanize Jason to the point where you feel bad for him, even though you know what he eventually becomes.
And the way Vinson interacted with Gwendolyn Sundstrom’s Grace, it was obvious to me that they should do a Crystal Lake spinoff that’s a kid’s adventure show where Jason and Grace go out into the woods and have, well, adventures. And it wouldn’t be a horror themed show. It would be a fun, practically family type show. Or maybe a movie. Or a TV special. I think it would be worth doing and people would watch it.
The cast in general is quite good: Beyond Cardellini, Catlett, and Vinson, the rest of the Crystal Lake cast is quite good. Whether it’s the people in the diner (Daniel Stewart Sherman is great as Enos) or the guy that plays Crazy Ralph (Nick Cordileone) or the people that inhabit Sheriff Brooks’ daily life (like his sister Brianna played by Devin Kessler or his deputy Dorf played by Cameron Scoggins) to the people at the camp to, heck, even the band of hippies that show up in the middle of the season, they are all well cast. And they all seem like real people that had lives before the first episode, so it’s like the audience has just dropped in on this little town where all sorts of weird stuff is happening or is going to happen soon. The Friday the 13th franchise has been accused since its inception that it is filled with undeveloped/underdeveloped characters that are just meat for the slasher killer grinder, an idea which I’ve never put much stock in. The franchise as a whole has always been well cast, and while the characters on Crystal Lake get more time to develop than in the movies, the characters have always been distinct throughout the franchise. It’s great to see A24 keep that tradition alive, even if they would never admit it.
The look of the show: One of the things you will likely notice while watching the Friday the 13th franchise is that the only movies that have any sort of visual continuity are the first two, Friday the 13th (1980) and Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981). Once the franchise gets to Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982), Crystal Lake starts to look different in each subsequent movie. And I’ve always suspected that that is likely due to each movie being filmed in different locations and no one involved with actually producing the movies giving a crap whether or not the movies maintained any sort of visual continuity. The Camp Crystal Lake sign seems to be the only thing that’s the same throughout the franchise. So, when the TV show was announced and it was revealed that it would be a prequel to the first movie, how would Crystal Lake the town and camp and whatnot look? Would the TV show make an effort to look like the first movie, or would the TV show do what the majority of movies did in the franchise, look like nothing else? Amazingly, Crystal Lake looks very much like it takes place in the same town that we see in the first movie. Part of that is due to them making the show in the same general area that the first movie was made in, a place that apparently hasn’t changed much since 1979/1980, and part of that is likely due to the show’s production design, art direction, and set decorator teams.
Go ahead and just watch that first episode on mute and just look at the show. Crystal Lake looks like a town from the 1970s. The diner. The storefronts. The sheriff’s office. The cars. The camp. It all looks like a place from decades ago. And when they do a flashback to the 1950s/1960s in episode seven, the audience is taken back to yet another different time. A24 and series creator Brad Caleb Kane spared no expense in making sure Crystal Lake looked a very specific way, and they paid attention to the details. I’m sure there’s already an article somewhere online pointing out the various mistakes and anachronisms that appear in the show, but that’s likely just nitpicking. The Crystal Lake that we see in Crystal Lake is very much evokes what we see in the first two movies.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Crystal Lake gets various technical Emmy nominations for its look. That’s about the only thing the show will get recognized for in mainstream awards circles.
The violence: The Friday the 13th franchise is known for its blood and gore and violence, both the stuff that we get to see in the released movies and all of the stuff that was removed to achieve an R rating (franchise fans still hope and pray that all of the gory stuff that was removed from the movies is found one day). Would the TV show based on the franchise do the same? Would Crystal Lake be at least as violent as the movies?
Yes, yes it is. It may even be more violent than the movies in terms of what we get to see. Throats get slit, jaws get knocked off, people get stabbed and ripped apart, and it all looks incredibly nasty. And on top of that, it appears that a good chunk of it was done via practical effects, another thing the movie franchise is known for.
So, that’s a relief. Will the show try to outdo the violence in season one in a potential season two? Will we get more elaborate practical effects violence? Will the show figure out how to outdo that sequence where Pamela wrapped that guy’s head in plastic wrap, the plastic wrap filled up with blood, and then the guy sprang back to life, knocked Pamela over, and then the impromptu plastic bag popped and drenched Pamela in blood? Because that was fucking disgusting.
The skinned hippie hanging in Crazy Ralph’s shed was pretty disgusting, too. And there was that human torso the sheriff found in the bear cave. Good God that was gross.
The opening title sequence for episode 1: The early Friday the 13th movies have a very specific style to them when it comes to their opening titles sequences. Words appear in a very specific font, words tend to explode for no reason, and the music by composter Harry Manfredini overwhelms damn near everything. The opening titles sequence for episode one mimics those early movie sequences in such a way that you think you’re watching one of those movies and it’s damn near perfect. And while the subsequent episodes don’t get as elaborate as that first episode, they do a great job evoking the feel of those first batch of movies. I have to say that it’s outstanding to see a new TV show in this day and age try to have both an opening theme and an opening titles sequence that goes on for more than three to five seconds. Opening titles sequences and theme songs have become a lost art in television. It’s something I’d like to see come back.
The soundtrack rocks: The movies in the Friday the 13th franchise have a very distinct sound to them when it comes to their music, and that’s due to frequent franchise composer Harry Manfredini (Fred Mollin, who did part of the soundtrack for 1988’s Friday the 13th Part VII: A New Blood and the whole soundtrack for 1989’s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, is also responsible for the franchise’s sound). Getting Manfredini to compose the show’s opening theme was an unexpected treat, and then getting Giosue Greco to essentially pay homage to that theme and music throughout each episode was another unexpected treat. Yet another detail that A24 and Kane got right and spent time on.
The Bad
Peacock releasing the entire season at once: I’m going to assume that Peacock decided to release all eight episodes of the show at once because they wanted to have a big deal horror event thing for October and the Halloween season, and while that release strategy makes a kind of sense, it probably would have been wiser to release the show one episode a week for eight weeks. Or maybe release the first two episodes the first week, and then one every week after that. That way, the show could have built social media momentum and buzz and it would have given TV watchers something to talk about for weeks. Perhaps then the potential audience for the show would have grown with each new episode and each social media discussion. I mean, after Halloween is over, will people still be discussing Crystal Lake, or will people have moved on to something else?
Momentum is important. Buzz is important. You can’t really build either if you release everything all at once.
Jason’s “sci-fi” origin: When the trailer for Crystal Lake was released, speculation ram rampant as to what the long hallway with the door with the yellow triangle sign on it was all about. Were they going to add some sort of “science experiment” or CIA bullshit to the show to explain Jason or Pamela or whatever? Were they trying to Stranger Things up a Friday the 13th movie franchise TV show? I seem to remember someone from the show responding to the complaints on social media by saying that the hallway in question wasn’t what it appeared to be, that everyone was assuming wrong and just needed to wait and see what was actually going on with the hallway and the door and the yellow triangle.
So, yeah, Crystal Lake has decided that part of the origin of Jason involves a science experiment of sorts. Basically, it all involves a nefarious chemical company, research into cockroaches, and a secret Cold War era project to create a person that would be able to survive a nuclear bomb attack. Pamela ended up partaking in this experiment after she found out that she might lose Jason in childbirth. It all seemed like a good idea at the time it was presented to her.
Yeah. It seemed that way. And I’m sure that when the show’s writers came up with this “sci-fi origin” for Jason it seemed like a great idea. It helps explain, in a sort of “real world” way, how Jason can keep coming back after being attacked and presumably killed again and again. The “sci-fi origin” also gives credence to and helps explain the idea that Jason survived his drowning, became a mountain man in the woods, and actually saw his mother get decapitated.
While I am willing to give the show room to explore this idea further in future seasons, I am not a fan of this figuring out a way to get Jason technically alive during the events of the first movie so he can see his mother get decapitated. And I don’t like the idea of Pamela knowing that Jason is still alive and living in the woods, like we see at the very end of the last episode. I don’t like that idea at all.
But, again, I’m willing to give the show time to explore all of this hooey and do something interesting with it. I guess we’ll see if that actually happens.
I have my own “series/franchise theory” as to what is really happening with the Friday the 13th/Jason movies, and I will likely write that up one of these days. So, you know, be on the lookout for that.
And before anyone says anything, I am well aware that the franchise has a sci-fi entry in it, Jason X (2002), and that fact doesn’t change anything I’ve said here. Nothing at all. And that “2002” date is to denote the North American release of the movie. I know it technically got released in Spain in 2001.
Elias Wittering: As part of Pamela’s backstory, we find out that she was married to a guy named Elias Wittering, that he is Jason’s father, and to a degree, I guess, that Jason Voorhees’ real name is actually Jason Wittering. Or something. We also find out that Elias Wittering is a piece of shit that works for the nefarious chemical company that created Jason. Elias Wittering is the “real villain” of season one.
While I do like the performance of the actor hired to play Elias Wittering (Hamish Linklater makes Elias such a fucking sleazebag that you will cheer when Jason crushes his head and pops his goddamn eyeballs out at the end of the eighth episode), I’m not sure if I like him being the bad guy in season one. I think it would have been far more interesting and shocking if an unseen Elias first sent a series of what amounts to bounty hunters/scumbag private eyes/former Black Ops mercenaries to Crystal Lake to find Pamela, then we see him as Pamela’s husband in episode 7, and then he reveals himself as the full on villain at the end of episode eight. Maybe have the idea of Elias himself coming to Crystal Lake be the hook for a potential season two.
And I’m just not a fan of the Wittering name. I can’t explain why it feels wrong and sounds wrong, but it does.
Do you think Elias has a brother that also works for the nefarious chemical company and will want revenge in a potential season two? I mean, that could happen, right?
The big change in regards to who killed the camp counselors that failed to keep an eye on Jason: I think I understand why the show changed the established lore regarding the camp counselors that were having sex when Jason drowned and who kills them, but I’m not a fan of it at all. I would rather have Pamela still be the killer of the counselors instead of Grace. Grace killing anyone, even if she’s high as a kite on hippie goofballs or whatever and she doesn’t know what she’s doing, just seems wrong. But then the show doesn’t want the audience to see Grace as totally innocent, as she basically allows Pamela to kill her mother (and, yeah, Grace’s mother is abusive, but I have a feeling that the show is somehow going to change that in season two. I don’t know how they’re going to change it but I think they will. Grace’s mother is going to be “misunderstood” or some bullshit). And Grace spent all of that time hanging out with those hippies. That can’t be considered good in the grand scheme of things.
Are we going to see Grace try to reconcile with the growing mountain man/sack head Jason in a potential season two? Is Grace going to become/grow into a sadistic killer in the future?
The human torso kept in a refrigerator: I know the show attempts to explain why Sheriff Brooks decides to keep the chewed up human torso he found in the bear cave in his refrigerator at home, but it’s still fucking nasty. And it’s nasty in a way that isn’t sort of darkly funny or weird, it’s just fucking gross. And, my God, can you imagine how much that goddamn thing must have smelled, even if it was “chilling” in his refrigerator? And think of the stench that thing picked up while being in that fucking bear cave!
Come on, Levon, really, man? I hope he gets a new fridge for his place in between seasons.
A lack of clarity when it comes to what the show is meant to actually be: Okay, so we know that Crystal Lake is meant to be a kind of prequel to the first movie, but what exactly does that mean? Are we supposed to believe that the events of the show are now “official series canon” or is the show meant to be a reboot/reimaging of the franchise as a whole? I mean, when you look at the continuity in Friday the 13th as a whole, it’s all over the place and none of it fits together. So what the heck is going on here? Is Crystal Lake an actual part of “established Friday the 13th/Jason continuity,” or is it meant to be the start of something completely new that borrows bits and pieces from the movies? Sort of like one of those “ultimate” comic book lines that reworks/reimagines stories and characters and whatnot? Is that what’s going on with Crystal Lake?
And, yes, I know fretting about the continuity of a horror franchise is nerdy as hell and ultimately pointless because there are more important and pressing things in the world to worry about and we only have so much time on this planet, etc., but it would be nice to know what the heck is really going on here. It just would.
And, yes, I also know that even if we did get an “official explanation” of what is actually going on here that Friday the 13th fandom wouldn’t stop arguing about bullshit. You don’t need to point that out to me.
Conclusion
Even with the issues I have with the show, Crystal Lake is definitely worth a watch for Friday the 13th/Jason fans, horror fans, and anyone that likes to take chances with TV shows. The first season of Crystal Lake isn’t perfect, but it is good enough to check out. I’m a fan, and I’m hoping that we get a second season. As of me writing this, there haven’t been any announcements from Peacock or A24 about a second season, so who knows if that is going to happen?
Who else wants to know what happens next in the small town of Crystal Lake? What the heck is Crazy Ralph going to do? What the heck is Pamela going to do?
Overall Rating: 7.0/10.0
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