We were hoping for a trailer, but Peacock has just announced some still very exciting Friday the 13th news. Crystal Lake will officially premiere on the streaming platform on October 15, right in time for Halloween.
Was it a missed trick not releasing the show on Friday the 13th? Maybe, but the next one of those isn't until November, meaning the prequel would completely bypass spooky season.
The upcoming small-screen reboot—produced alongside A24—has enlisted Brad Caleb Kane as showrunner, with Linda Cardellini (Scooby-Doo) set to lead the series as Jason Voorhees' mother, Pamela.
It's previously been reported that Pamela gave up her singing career to raise a child, Jason (Callum Vinson), who has special needs. Things take a dark turn when Jason drowns at summer camp (the titular "Crystal Lake"), prompting Pamela to go on a killing spree, making the camp counsellors pay for their negligence.
Of course, we know that when the still very much "alive" Jason witnesses one of the camp counsellors decapitating his mom, he's inspired to go on a murder spree of his own. There's a supernatural element to the character, and after somehow surviving his apparent drowning, Jason avenges his mother by killing, well, everyone.
Crystal Lake also stars William Catlett, Devin Kessler, Cameron Scoggins, Gwendolyn Sundstrom, Nick Cordileone, Danielle Kotch, Phoenix Parnevik, Nancy Nagrant, and Joy Suprano. Michael Lennox, Celine Held and Logan George, and Quyen Tran direct episodes, while Victor Miller, Marc Toberoff, Robert M. Barsamian, Robert P. Barsamian, and Stuart Manashil executive produce.
Crystal Lake won't be the first time this iconic horror franchise has been brought to television, as Friday the 13th: The Series aired between 1987 and 1990. The last time we saw Jason on our screens was in the 2009 reboot.
"In many ways, it's a psychological thriller. It's a paranoid '70s thriller," Kane previously teased. "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."
Pushed on how Crystal Lake fits into the admittedly convoluted continuity of the Friday the 13th franchise, the showrunner added, "I tried to think about Crystal Lake and a Friday the 13th prequel as, 'What era did the first movie come out of?'"
"It came 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."
Stay tuned for more on Crystal Lake as we have it.