‘Crystal Lake’ Review: A Bloody, Heartbreaking Reinvention of a Slasher Classic

“Some of us are meant to wear masks.”

When it comes to the Mount Rushmore of horror icons, Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees has been synonymous with slashers for four decades. Jason isn’t the first slasher villain, but he helped rejuvenate this blood-splattered subgenre during the ‘80s with a franchise that would span a dozen movies. The Friday the 13th franchise has grossed over $1 billion in total revenue, including video games, home video sales, and merchandising. Jason Voorhees represents peak slasher mayhem. However, he hasn’t had a new cinematic entry since 2009’s Friday the 13th reboot, which is now over 15 years old. 

Jason Voorhees’ pop culture footprint will never completely disappear. That said, it’s shrunk significantly since 2009, and the masked killer’s biggest moments have been reserved for video game expansions. In this sense, Peacock’s Crystal Lake is kind of a big deal. It’s not just the first Friday the 13th TV series in four decades, but it’s also the long-awaited return of Jason and Camp Crystal Lake after 17 years of silence.

Crystal Lake takes its share of liberties and is a very different story than audiences are likely to expect, despite it still hitting many of the cherished Friday the 13th touchstones. It’s a faithful take on the source material that’s still full of surprises, as it presents the full spectrum of Jason Voorhees – son, victim, killer, survivor. There are times when Crystal Lake is overwrought, silly, and over-the-top, but it’s also a campy, cruel love letter to ‘80s slashers that’s so much more than just an eight-part Friday the 13th TV series. It’s an extremely satisfying step forward for the Friday the 13th franchise after nearly two decades of standstill. 

Crystal Lake, in many ways, is more Pamela Voorhees’ (Linda Cardellini) story than it is Jason’s, which is kind of beautiful. Crystal Lake’s first glimpse of Jason is as an innocent, scared child, not some hulking, murderous monster. It humanizes Jason and presents him as a fragile extension of Pamela’s humble life, which makes both of their fates all the more tragic and devastating. This tragic backstory approach to Jason is effectively implemented, rather than something that induces eye rolls. It’s not so much an attempt to rewrite Jason’s story by humanizing him. These elements have always been a part of him. It’s just such a telling way to explore the Voorhees family and the grim fate that befalls them and metastasizes into this eternal curse that takes over Camp Crystal Lake.