{"id":625805,"date":"2026-10-09T22:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T22:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625805\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T22:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T22:14:14","slug":"crystal-lake-2026-new-york-comic-con-panel-friday-the-13th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/625805\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Crystal Lake’ 2026 New York Comic Con panel, ‘Friday the 13th’"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you thought you knew everything about Camp Crystal Lake<\/a> and the Voorhees family\u2026 think again.<\/p>\n

Just in time for spooky season, the dormant Friday the 13th<\/a> franchise is revived via Crystal Lake<\/a>, an A24\/Peacock collab that\u2019s dropping all eight episodes on Oct. 15. The 1970s-set prequel series reimagines the backstory of Pamela Voorhees, played by Emmy winner Linda Cardellini<\/a>, and her son, Jason (Callum Vinson). As in the franchise-launching 1980 slasher movie, Crystal Lake depicts Jason\u2019s drowning in the titular body of water and Pamela\u2019s subsequent transformation into a killer. But in a tweak to the established lore, there are also a group of strangers looking into her past as mysterious and gruesome killings start occurring around town.<\/p>\n

\"LOS<\/a> \"Linda<\/a> <\/p>\n

Peacock hosted a sneak-peek screening and panel at the 2026 New York Comic Con<\/a> on Thursday, with showrunner and executive producer Brad Caleb Kane<\/a> joined by stars Cardellini and Vinson as well as supporting players William Catlett, Devin Kessler, Nick Cordileone, Cameron Scoggins, and Gwendolyn Sundstrom.<\/p>\n

Fans of the gory 12-film franchise are probably most curious about whether the overall series lives up to the gore in the original movies. Have no fear \u2014 Kane addressed that early on, noting that while a lot of time is devoted to the character development of Pamela and Jason, the series still fully delivers on the Friday legacy of inventively gory kills.<\/p>\n

“If you’re wondering if we’re ever going to go full-throttle Friday the 13th, we go there and we drop a lot of bodies,” Kane told the crowd, “It\u2019s a lot more brutal. I think it’s even more brutal in many ways from some of the movies.”<\/p>\n

Here are the rest of our bloody takeaways from Crystal Lake\u2019s NYCC panel.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cardellini as Pam in ‘Crystal Lake’Peacock<\/p>\n

Everything you ever wanted to know about Pamela Voorhees* (*but were afraid to ask)<\/p>\n

Horror fans have long revered Betsy Palmer\u2019s iconically terrifying turn as Mrs. Voorhees in the original movie, and her climactic decapitation left viewers wanting more. Kane said that he wanted to tackle that exact creative itch.<\/p>\n

“We meet Pamela Voorhees for like 10 minutes in the last movie and then she gets her head lopped off,” he noted. “So it’s a little bit of F13 blue balls, and I feel like you want to know more.”<\/p>\n

Cardellini admitted she was surprised when Kane approached her for the role, but embraced the rare chance to explore the character\u2019s psyche and rage. “I was very flattered, of course, but I didn’t understand the connection,” the DTF: St. Louis star said. “I’ve never been allowed to play that much rage, and you can only do it in this genre.”<\/p>\n

Later, Cardellini added how refreshing it was to show the journey of a woman who wasn’t born a psychopath, and to anchor the show in the complex relationship between a loving mother and a sweet young boy. “The relationship between Jason and Pam starts in a place that is fresh because we all know how it ends,” Cardellini observed. “He goes through so much in the show, and I think that is a really beautiful piece of the puzzle.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Camp Crystal Lake lives again in ‘Crystal Lake’Matt Infante\/Peacock<\/p>\n

Going back to the OG roots (literally, New Jersey)<\/p>\n

Later Friday sequels strayed far from home, with Jason heading to Atlanta, various spots in California, and even Manhattan for what Kane joked was essentially “Jason takes Toronto.” That\u2019s why the showrunner insisted on returning to the franchise’s exact location of Blairstown, N.J., the original location of the 1980 film, to capture the authenticity of Camp Crystal Lake and the surrounding woods.<\/p>\n

“We set up our video village right in the middle of the town, and we didn’t really have very effective barriers,” Kane recalled. “Townies just came from various parts of Jersey and would sit [there], and I’d be like, ‘Who are these people?’ It’s just fans.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Cameron Scoggins and William Catlett in ‘Crystal Lake’ Matt Infante\/Peacock<\/p>\n

Chemistry matters<\/p>\n

Catlett, who plays local cop Levon Brooks, spoke about how playing a police officer in New Jersey circa 1972 required finding an authentic headspace. So rather than rely on standard procedural tropes, the actor turned to actual beat cops while working on location.<\/p>\n

“I would look into their eyes, and I would shake their hand,” Catlett remembered. “I say, ‘OK, cool. He shook my hand like this; he probably moves and walks like this.’ So when Cameron and I are in the police station, I can just pull from them, and then we can just ease into the scene.”<\/p>\n

When it came to building chemistry with Cardellini, Catlett said he preferred to hold out for a striking first impression. “I knew some of Linda’s work, but I don’t like to really research other actors when I know that I’m going to read with them,” he explained. “I just looked at a picture of her online\u2026 and I said, ‘Ooh, I can fall in love with that woman.'”<\/p>\n

Catlett\u2019s Levon is a new addition to the franchise alongside his onscreen sister Brianna Brooks (Devin Kessler), who said her journalist character brings ambition and fearlessness to the 1972 setting. “She’s a woman of the time,” the actress noted. “She wants to mean something to the world and make some type of statement, so she’ll chase the story even if it gets her involved in some danger.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Devin Kessler in ‘Crystal Lake’ Matt Infante\/Peacock<\/p>\n

The series stakes a knife in familiar horror tropes<\/p>\n

In another creative shift away from the film franchise, the Crystal Lake creative team set out to add more dimensions to conventional horror tropes and types. “What Brad did, what the writing team did, was take this thing that could be a trope for horror films\u2026 [and] fleshed it out,” said Cordileone, who plays town oddball Crazy Ralph. “It was an absolute gift to just come and be able to live that. He’s an unreliable narrator, too, but he’s very positive about some things, so it\u2019s a real tug of war.”<\/p>\n

“I’m biased, so yes, of course, he’s the hero of the show,” Scoggins said of his own alter ego, Officer Dorf. “It\u2019s just been really exciting to explore what the hell he\u2019s talking about when he\u2019s talking about the weirdness out here, because it\u2019s been around. He brings some of the comic relief to this as well\u2026 but he ends up also in a very perilous place.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Cardellini in ‘Crystal Lake’Peacock<\/p>\n

Being Jason Voorhees<\/p>\n

R-rated horror can sometimes be difficult to pull off with child actors, but 12-year-old Vinson and 14-year-old Sundstrom, who plays Crystal Lake camper Grace, said they felt like part of the show\u2019s adult cast.<\/p>\n

“I had only found out that it was Friday the 13th by like the third callback,” Sundstrom said. “I was just really interested when I first read the lines\u2026 and I immediately fell in love with Grace.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Vinson said he was told to keep his summer gig a secret from his classmates, a tough challenge given that he\u2019s a longtime franchise fan. “I have watched [all the films] up to Part VI,” he revealed. “I’ve loved Jason ever since I was a kid. I wanted to watch [the movies] for so long and I finally booked this, and I was like, \u2018I can finally watch this!\u2019”<\/p>\n

“Callum was running around with the machete, like, the whole time,” Kane said. “He goes up to people [with it]. I loved it.”<\/p>\n

Kane added that Cardellini, who is also a mother in real life, became protective of Vinson on set, especially when it came to wearing his prosthetics and makeup in the South Jersey summer heat. “It was like, ‘Get that thing off his head now, he’s too hot,\u2019” Kane recalled. \u201c\u2019You’re burning his brain.’ Get it off of him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you thought you knew everything about Camp Crystal Lake and the Voorhees family\u2026 think again. Just in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[307373,307374,430,55815,156,45348,113039,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-625805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-2026-new-york-comic-con","tag-brad-caleb-kane","tag-celebrities","tag-crystal-lake","tag-entertainment","tag-friday-the-13th","tag-linda-cardellini","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}