{"id":647019,"date":"2026-10-15T09:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/647019\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T09:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T09:32:08","slug":"crystal-lake-review-friday-the-13th-gets-unnecessary-expansion-in-gory-and-goofy-series-us-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/647019\/","title":{"rendered":"Crystal Lake review \u2013 Friday the 13th gets unnecessary expansion in gory and goofy series | US television"},"content":{"rendered":"

The unending exhaustion of IP has forced us to ask questions we never really wanted or needed to ask. How did the Pink Ladies in Grease<\/a> come to be the Pink Ladies? What would happen if one of The Craft witches had a kid who was <\/a>also a witch<\/a>? Why is the yellow brick road the colour of yellow<\/a>? What is Linda Blair up to these days<\/a>?<\/p>\n

No one or no thing ever really dies any more, something that has long been true in the world of slashers, where no amount of stabbing, shooting and exploding has stopped masked killers from killing again and again and again. Recent years have seen the timeline of the Halloween franchise retooled<\/a> so that Michael Myers could regain his head and restart his reign of terror, while Ghostface has resurfaced<\/a> to stalk the younger relatives of his old frenemies. As Leatherface prepares an A24 comeback<\/a> courtesy of Obsession\u2019s Curry Barker and dual Nightmare on Elm Street reboots square off<\/a>, it\u2019s time to return to Camp Crystal Lake to see what desperate rights-holders can do with Friday the 13th\u2019s Jason Voorhees, the hockey mask-wearing giant who enjoys slicing and dicing horny youngsters.<\/p>\n

Given the success of the low-budget franchise (12 films since 1980 grossing almost $500m worldwide) and the killer\u2019s still strong brand recognition, it\u2019s surprising that we haven\u2019t seen him since the middling 2009 remake (especially as quality has never been a preventive issue in the franchise). It\u2019s partly down to a headache-inducing scramble over rights but also the difficulty of placing a killer as mechanically one-note as Jason in a horror genre that now places more importance on trauma over terror. Friday the 13th films were tiny-brained and thinly plotted excuses to make couples squeeze each other tighter in the dark, light on thought and heavy on blood. Some were better than others (1984\u2019s The Final Chapter, which of course wasn\u2019t the final chapter, being a notable high point), but the bar was low and the more a film-maker might add to the plate, the less it might feel like a Friday the 13th movie.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to Crystal Lake, an almost comically of-the-moment pitch for a 2026 return to the franchise. A schlocky sleepover slasher has now become an overstuffed eight-part streaming series exploring the backstory of Jason but mainly focused on the psychology of his murderous mother, Pamela, who was revealed to be the killer in the first film. What turned Pamela into a psychopath? Why was Jason able to survive his drowning? What exactly are we doing here?<\/p>\n

Pamela is a character who was in less than 15 minutes of a 46-year-old movie, best known since as a Halloween costume or a Scream gotcha question<\/a>, more plot twist than person. But she\u2019s now been turned into an ex-nightclub singer turned experimented-on Stepford Wife turned grieving mother turned avenging angel. It\u2019s expansion for expansion\u2019s sake in a show that isn\u2019t as heinous as it could be, but more a passable answer to an LA conference room question that should never have been asked in the first place.<\/p>\n

In the lead, Linda Cardellini, fresh off an Emmy win, tries to bring some prestige to the pulp and almost succeeds. The violent hardening of her camp cook single mother, whose disfigured son accidentally dies in the cold open (far too soon for us to be emotionally invested), is only ever close to being tantalising because of how far she\u2019s willing to go. But the tone of the show is far less surer than her at times ferociously compelling performance. Creator Brad Caleb Kane wills us to take the silliness seriously in moments as some vague commentary is made about the medical and societal treatment of women in the 70s before he leans into full-on, Syfy channel goofiness. To justify an entire series, he gives us flashbacks, a conspiracy, some romance, a spot of police corruption, a plucky journalist, a seance, a nefarious life coach and a shadowy corporation, an overbooked camp fit to burst. It\u2019s Bates Motel but for a film without even a shred of the texture of Psycho and while meddling with a franchise as tinny as Friday the 13th is not exactly sacrilege, it\u2019s just entirely pointless.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that a TV series directly copying the stalk-and-slash formula of the films would have worked either (even an 80s attempt used Friday the 13th as a symbol of bad luck rather than a way to bring Jason to the small screen), but it\u2019s just that a TV series maybe wasn\u2019t the best idea in the first place. Horror stans might appreciate the fan service (and the staggeringly nasty gore) but for anyone else, the overcomplicated and underpowered Crystal Lake just doesn\u2019t warrant the stay. Jason will inevitably be back (a new film is reportedly in the works) but, despite Cardellini\u2019s best efforts, maybe it\u2019s best to leave Pamela behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The unending exhaustion of IP has forced us to ask questions we never really wanted or needed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-647019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}