The review embargo has lifted for A24's Crystal Lake, which will debut its entire 8-episode season this Thursday on Peacock.
Friday the 13th fans should be very pleased to hear that the critical response has been largely positive, although some reviews definitely lean more negative, and one critic calls the series "the worst piece of media I've ever seen."
Crystal Lake is currently sitting at a very respectable 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.
After spending over 15 years lying dormant at the bottom of a lake because of complicated rights issues tied to the character, the news broke last year that Jason Voorhees was finally set to return to terrorise a new group of teenage camp counsellors.
This take on Pamela Voorhees is described as "a mother who had given up a singing career to raise a special needs child and takes a dark turn when she loses her son."
The cast also includes Nick Cordileone (Warrior), Joy Suprano (Fleishman is in Trouble), Danielle Kotch (Director’s Cut), and Phoenix Parnevik (Bel-Air) as future Voorhees victims Ralph, Rita, Claudette, and Barry.
"In many ways, it's a psychological thriller," Kane said in a recent interview. "It's a paranoid '70s thriller. It has all of the DNA of a slasher without quite being a slasher. There are rivers of blood in the show. There are very, I think, ingenious kill sequences and deaths and murders, but it's all done in service of character and theme and place and time."
"[Friday the 13th] out of the paranoid '70s thriller era. It came out of the mistrust-of-institutions era. It came out of the women's lib era, the National Organization for Women era, this consciousness-raising awakening era in America. I wanted to go and play with all of those themes," he added. "[Cardellini is] gonna shock and surprise a lot of people."