My freeform stream of consciousness Crystal Lake review. Since I can't post it on Letterboxd!🤬 Crystal Lake: Season 1 (2026), up front, from a technical perspective, the show is very well produced and mostly well acted. Especially by Linda Cardellini playing Pamela Voorhees. The production as with most things A24 couldn't be slicker, which runs smoothly like a well oiled machine. The cinematography was top notch, and it's well written, paced fairly well, with enough twists and turns to keep me mildly interested from one episode to the next. So from the perspective of a newbie, who isn't all that well acquainted with the Friday the 13th mythos, who lack a decades long emotional attachment to the series. I can thoroughly understand why they  would find it entertaining.  However, since I'm looking at it from the perspective of a hardcore fan, who's been watching any and all things Friday the 13th related since I was roughly 8 years old in 88. I found everything about the show profoundly irritating, frustrating beyond belief, and a few of the decisions they made genuinely infuriating. Sadly, it's yet another IP and for those unaware, that incredibly annoying term means intellectual property. That's been ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of moral relativism and pathological altruism and retconned into near oblivion. Which not only reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of everything the franchise stands for, but most likely... intentionally manages to invert and undermine several of its self evident tenets. In terms of tone, feel, vibe, whatever you want to call it. It's absolutely nothing like the original films. Because it's quite clear, the showrunners are simply incapable of capturing that ephemeral essence. While some might roll their eyes, there's few things that are more important when it comes to horror than tone. That's sadly a lost art, that most modern producers and directors have very little comprehension of. But a lot of that comes from their inability to put themselves into the headspace and mindset, to be able to adequately process the elements that made the films of those eras, feel uniquely of those eras. A lot of that I blame on modern snide, chiding, passive-aggressive and snarky postmodern sensibilities, where everything needs to be meta, tongue in cheek and detached. Sincerity is all but dead, and everything has to be ironic, or dripping with cringe humor. Or the opposite, which is unrelenting grimness, existential dread and their adoration of unhappy endings. So when updating those IP's for modern audiences, which are words that should strike abject terror into the hearts of most old school horror fans. We're going to get period pieces, unfortunately filtered through incredibly annoying modern sensibilities. Which leaves them feeling more like an SNL parody of said eras, which rarely come close to feeling even remotely authentic. So, here's my attempt to lay out precisely why the  amazingly entertaining and compulsively watchable first 8 Friday the 13th films worked as well as they did. First off,  the counselors were never the walking  stereotypes that movies like Scream have made them out to be. While maybe not thoroughly realized three dimensional characters. They are far more complex than people seem to realize, they're well rounded very human characters that actually resembled the way people use to act in the 80's. They talk the way people talked and generally captured the real vibe of the time. They're far more endearing than the annoying cliches littering the remakes of today, the characters in 80's movies are far more likable than they are given credit for. Therefore, no one rooted for them to die... ever! That's another misnomer. The sexuality while awesome and gratuitous back in the day, it was always innocent and sweet natured, much like in real life. Not some girl saying, "look at my tits Jason, tee hee!" That you see in that piece of trash Freddy vs. Jason or the 2009 remake. Which is why it feels more innocent... oddly enough, and directors and actors at the time were far more guilt free and naturalistic in their approach, which makes it feel less icky to the audience. They're simply capturing playful young people having fun and it never comes across as exploitative or objectifying.  Remember, this is coming on the heels of the sexual revolution and porno filled 70's. People weren't quite as uptight, and it was the prudes on the Left and Right condemning these films. Whereas the filmmakers of today fearing some politically correct feminist backlash seem ashamed to show female nudity. Therefore making the audience feel their pang of discomfort, which makes it more awkward for the viewer, so the guilt they feel is also felt by the viewers. Location, location, location... the location is paramount, in the old movies you got a sense of every little nook and cranny of the summer camp which either brought back memories you have or made you want to go. You get to see how the camp works, it almost feels like you're there, because the directors understood spatiality and how the human mind comprehends it, and how to make it an atmospheric and immersive experience.  Which enhances the fear felt by the audience, because it already feels so familiar to us. The framing and blocking of shots in the first Friday the 13th is masterful, especially in the bathroom scenes, and peering into the bright windows from outside. But also abruptly shifting to complete darkness, leads to spatial disorientation and feeling overwhelmed. The POV shots are shaky and feel real, like we're being forced to see through the eyes of the killer. Making the viewer feel discomfort. Not nearly as polished and unnatural as modern POV shots.  Then there's the mythology and motives of the killers, and the clarity the audience felt in terms of who they're rooting for. We never really needed anything definite, it was just assumed that Jason Voorhees was an elemental spirit of vengeance, whose anger and willpower brought him back from his watery grave to avenge his own death as well as his mother's. Sure, maybe the dream sequences and confusing endings didn't always make logical sense. But we didn't need everything laid out on a silver platter, over analyzed and over explained. We just rolled with it. Because ultimately, no matter how many times he got killed, Jason would keep coming back over and over and over. He was always a zombie, just varying stages of decomposition. No explanation needed. Jason and Pamela Voorhees while somewhat sympathetic due to what happened, they were never overtly framed misunderstood heroes!!! No one in their right mind ever rooted for them! If they did, then  there's probably something seriously wrong with you! Yes, poor little Jason was bullied as a kid, and let drown. Which caused his mother to go mad with rage, and start butchering the counselors when Steve Christy tried to reopen Camp Crystal Lake. School shooters were bullied, serial killers were bullied, rapists were  bullied, many alcoholic fathers were bullied by their alcoholic fathers, emotionally abusive mothers were often emotionally abused by their mothers, many pedophiles were sexually assaulted as children. A lot of shitty things happen to us as children, and yes bullying is horrible. It's a pattern, hurt people... hurt people! But that doesn't make it right for the kids to grow up and take it out on completely innocent people that had nothing to do with what happened to them! While sure, it's fine to understand a mother's rage, especially in killing the ones that let Jason die. While that's a vigilante act that might seem satisfying. Ultimately it was a mistake on their part, and they didn't deserve to be executed. What? Is Right Wing puritanical vigilantism from mothers now cool all of a sudden? Like with most things, the compulsive self destructive current need to see the good in monsters, isn't very well thought out! No, they're not all misunderstood and just need a hug, they're fucking bloodthirsty maniacs who would slice everyone looking for the good in them to absolute ribbons! I blame some of this on that hack Rob Zombie, for his misunderstanding of the true nature of Michael Myers. He's not some bullied nerdy metalhead like you Rob! He's pure unadulterated evil, there's no reason given, which makes him all the more terrifying. There's no explaining it away. The same goes for Jason Voorhees, while at least his anger is understandable, his compulsion to kill mercilessly any and all things that stand in his way, is not.  This isn't Frankenstein's monster who never asked to be born, and was abused by the terrified locals. This isn't the Wolf Man, a man who was pure of heart and says his prayers by night, being forced to turn into a beast against his will. This isn't King Kong or the Creature from the Black Lagoon, beasts minding their own business being captured by exploitative scientists and fame seekers! Norman Bates is profoundly mentally ill with a split personality, even though that's stretching it. Ultimately, those are sympathetic creatures. Freddy Krueger is a pedophile serial killer of children. He's a piece of shit! So is Jason and so is Michael! Get it fucking straight! Yet that's exactly what the makers of this disaster of a show based the entire premise around. Women can no longer be villains, they always need a get out of jail free justification, removing any semblance of guilt  from the equation! Which ironically takes their agency away. It's implying that women can't just naturally be old fashioned serial killers just like men. They're incapable of it, until they're forced into that position by no good objectifying exploitative men, ironically once again... giving the men all the power in the situation. Villains are no longer allowed to be villains anymore. The pathological compulsion to let them off the hook or justify their abhorrent crimes, isn't helping, but doing possibly  irreparable damage. In demythologizing and demystifying them. Mike Flanagan did the same thing with Carrie, which undermined literally everything about Carrie. It's not helping, it's hurting. Now fucking stop it! Alright, there's going to be a lot of spoilers from here on out, so be warned. Mostly it'll be a litany of all of the things that annoyed the hell out of me with this show. Inexplicably, in diabolical mythology busting fashion, Pamela Voorhees is a made up assumed name. So they try to ruin that for the old school fans. Voorhees is one of the coolest last names for a character in horror film history, yet for no reason whatsoever, they attempt to take that from us. Turning her name into the impossibly bland Wittering instead. Jason in all likelihood, suffered from hydrocephalus, which is a buildup of fluid in the brain, which can lead to abnormally large bulging heads in children. It can also rob them of their speech and greatly impede intellectual development.  If left untreated, the kids rarely make it to 5 years of age. Which is why Pamela referred to him as special in the first film, and why he was bullied. Yet in this dumbass show, they've turned him into one of the goddamn X-men. He was part of some shady government program, engineered by his nefarious emotionally abusive father. Located in Texas of course! Which injects, yes... fucking cockroach DNA into children, because cockroaches can survive a nuclear blast! Which ironically, is not true! Nothing can survive a nuclear blast, although they can withstand 10 times the amount of radiation as a human before croaking. So even the science is janky and poorly thought out.  But in their insatiable need to deconstruct everything in  sight, and remove the mystery and fun. Have turned Jason Voorhees into Cockroach-Man! For fuck sake! What's next, a dubstep mashup of Ki-ki-ki Ma-ma-ma and La Cucaracha? This also greatly hampers his motive for becoming a serial killer. After all, he doesn't die in the water and his mother doesn't have her head lopped off by Alice. So why exactly is he now some marauding lunatic hacking people to shreds? Young innocent Jason comes upon some helpless hippie chick caught in a bear trap and instead of letting her go, decides to skin her alive. Did he do that because a fat kid hit him in the head with a ball at camp? Poor, poor Jason! Also, why did he just leave his mother hanging, letting her think he was dead for a year, in which he seemingly aged a decade and grew two feet? After all, he could speak and had a loving relationship with her. It wasn't her fault that he almost drown, so why take it out on her? We also get some long drawn out backstory, which paints Pamela as a hero for the downtrodden, who stands up to any and all bullies! I guess we're supposed to cheer when she knocks a mother's goddamn jawbone out of her face with a fucking mallet and deep fries her head, then burns some innocent guy's restaurant down, because she mistakenly assumed that she burned her daughter Grace with a cigarette. Deplorable if true, but wouldn't calling child protective services be preferable? There's also a scene with a belligerent Dr. Phil by way of Tony Robbins self help guru,  who verbally berates people into unlocking their repressed rage, gets his face smashed in by some guy which that worked a little too well on. But only seconds before Pamela was primed and ready to cave his skull in with a bowling ball. His great crime towards her was, attempting to sleep with her. He doesn't rape her, but insults her after she changes her mind. Fine, the guy is a absolute dickhead and deserved a swift kick in the balls. But did he deserve to be permanently disfigured? What are they trying to do, normalize murdering toxic assholes? Not shocked in the least out of the depraved nihilists making these shows. Another thing I heard in the lead up that gave me pause, was that they were shifting the story from the late 50's to the early 70's. I guess the 50's were a little too far back and above their pay grade, and ripping off that 70's aesthetic from movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2003 and X was far easier. But of course, everyone in the show still comes across as an SNL parody of someone from the 60's and 70's, and poorly written ones, with terribly cheesy hippie names and cliched over the top haircuts and facial hair. You know, because no one in the 70's looked normal! It seems like drawing a little inspiration from like movies like Jaws, Halloween, The Exorcist etc, where virtually no one is some ridiculous caricature, could've proved useful. Yet ultimately, it ends up muddying the timeline even more, because we're never really sure when exactly the show is supposed to be taking place. It's set in 71, when Jason dies. But Jason ages like 10 years, while Grace who's slightly older, stays the same age. So I think it's all supposed to be within the span of a year. Barry and Claudette, the two religious kids from the start of the Friday the 13th, have been ruthlessly retconned beyond belief. Instead of framing them as exactly what they were, irresponsible religious kids who also happen to like nookie. No, it introduces this long elaborate tale of Claudette being some Nancy Allen in Carrie level vicious bitch on wheels. Who then hypocritically finds God and hides behind that, pretending to be a goody two shoes. They also paint her sight unseen preacher as some lecherous pervert.  While Barry is a manwhore who'll sleep with anything that moves, including no good dirty hippies! He also has a weird habit of using penile double entendre when explaining things to children.  Then we learn it was actually Jason's quasi girlfriend Grace, who stabbed Claudette and Barry while she was hopped up on three tabs of acid, so good old Pamela was just helping her out and covering her tracks! Absolving Pamela of yet even more guilt. So she's constantly floating in this uncomfortable space between being a full throated psychopath, and virtuous avenger through an endless stream of deus ex machina convenient plot devices, always seems to be in the right place and the right time and exert some form of cosmic vengeance on minor bullies who the writers have deemed worthy of heinous execution. I could go on for days ranting and raving about all of the inanities and inconsistencies that fill this show. But I'm getting tired of writing. So I'll just unleash a rapid fire barrage of observations of things I found bothersome. They've turned Crazy Ralph into a schizophrenic shellshocked vet with PTSD, turning a once humorous character into  someone horribly depressing. Little Jason has an enormous pumpkin head, I guess because they thought that would look almost cute. See, the elongated cranium he has in the original, is far too disturbing. So they had to water that make up down to make him more palatable. Ironically, this anti-bullying show thinks Jason was too fucking ugly for people to endure! So in the process turn him into a goddamn baby Toxic Avenger. They make amends to that poor very real rat snake that got hacked to death in the first one, by having Pamela irresponsibly put a goddamn deadly rattlesnake in a pot and carry it out in the woods to release it. So some innocent kid can stumble upon it and get viciously murdered. The showrunner hilariously tried to blame the show's lack of nudity on the derpy excuse of, "that's America!" While Peacock has several shows with nudity, and have shown the Fifty Shades Trilogy and Lar Von Trier's Nymphomaniac Vol 1&2, which is essentially hardcore porn. So not buying it! He was scared to draw the ire of the feminists. But of course, they did get some man ass in there! There's a borderline maddening scene in the small town diner, with Pamela's slutty best friend Rita, in public... out loud, reading pee-porn erotica. Which is something I highly doubt would happen now, much less in small town 70's America. The town of Crystal Lake was founded by Hodder McKane, ha-ha, get it! Easter egg! Fun! Fuck off, you cornball cheap cunts! Give the man a fucking role instead! The amount of cheesy cheap period establishing 70's music they cram into this show, is embarassing. They actually managed to match Rob Zombie's cringey use of Love Hurts from Nazareth in Halloween, with Pam mourning Jason to Badfinger's Without You. I literally burst out laughing, which I doubt was the desired reaction. They took a minor character in the bumbling Officer Dorf, who plays a tightass anti-weirdness backwoods cop, into a full blown fleshed out character. Of course his sole purpose is for them to make fun of small town hicks, and look like a complete and utter buffoon, with a racist father named Hamish. So edgy! They made the vast majority of the locals into shitkicking hillbillies, who are all about vigilante justice. But wait, isn't Pamela into that as well? I know there's a few rednecks in Jersey, but I didn't realize it was a part of fucking Appalachia! I kept expecting them to turn into Wrong Turn inbred cannibals!😆 They shoehorned the skinned hippie chick in as an homage to Annie from the first film, who gets sexually harassed by the diner inhabitants. Because, why exactly? That never happened! They kindly old dude who gave her a lift, asked if all the girls were as pretty as she was. That misogynist piece of shit, how dare him pay her a compliment and give her a lift! Barry is painted as a homophobe, because he freaked out and didn't want to take part in a threesome with a guy. I doubt most guys wouldn't react differently today. Regardless, the very gay part 7 exists! The Friday franchise has never said or done anything homophobic, so nothing to correct. Talk about parodies, the 50's look like some malevolent Pleasantville Stepford Wives uncanny valley hellscape. Which is understandable, because that's the extent of historical awareness the fuckwits that made this, have of that decade. Then there's the hippies, led by the super hot Harmony, which Pamela has it out for, because they're a bad influence on Grace. Because of course they fucking are, they're drinking and using drugs around children! There's the lingering fear of the Manson family too. The Sheriff inexplicably stores a partially devoured corpse in his fridge, because they needed a reason to be disgusting. Where the fuck are all of the counselors? There's seemingly only two of them, at all times. How did Jason make it all the way out to the middle of the lake to get that ball, and then drown? Did he suddenly forget how to swim? Oh yeah, and feminist icon Pamela is an enlightened woman of the times! She's not prudish in the least! Not even slightly religious. She was a quasi famous singer, who appeared on Jack Paar, and  even has one night stands. Welp, there goes her motive for killing sex crazed camp counselors. The show is a slick well made but ultimately boring unmitigated fucking disaster! Yet another beloved franchise of my childhood, ruthlessly torn asunder by passionless vandals out to make a quick buck. 4.9 out of 10.

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