By its very title, Peacock’s “Crystal Lake” sets certain expectations. The “Friday the 13th” prequel series’ very existence comes with predetermined fan and genre requirements: a litany of teenage sex and death at a sleepy, small-town summer camp where an aggravated being begins to take revenge for a cardinal sin. In many ways, it’s a near-impossible task to balance servicing the intellectual property and its larger franchise lore while telling an original story. So it must adhere to canon while still doing its own thing. The balance skates along a razor’s edge — or in the instance of “Crystal Lake,” a machete’s.
Produced by A24 and showrun by Brad Caleb Kane (“Tokyo Vice,” “It: Welcome to Derry” and, fun fact: the singing voice of Aladdin), the early stages of “Crystal Lake” follow in the footsteps of its bloody predecessors. When young Jason Voorhees (Callum Vinson) is neglected by camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake and accidentally drowns, mother Pamela (Linda Cardellini) is bereft with grief. In the aftermath, she tries to move on, only for her shadowy past to descend upon the town where she now resides, threatening her and the denizens of Crystal Lake, including police chief Levon Brooks (William Catlett), police officer Dorf (Cameron Scoggins), townie Rita (Joy Suprano), veteran Ralph (Nick Cordileone), and camp counselors Claudette (Danielle Kotch) and Barry (Phoenix Parnevik).
If this premise sounds familiar, it’s because the premiere of “Crystal Lake” covers most of what’s otherwise exposition in the original “Friday the 13th.” From there, the rest of the eight-episode series has to, from a functional standpoint, establish an ensemble cast of townsfolk while building toward Pamela’s inevitable descent into madness (spoiler alert for a movie that came out in 1980, I guess, wherein Pam’s revealed to be the original Camp Crystal Lake killer prior to Jason taking up duties).
Trying to balance servicing the franchise’s larger story with establishing itself on its own terms causes real growing pains, most evident in the show’s tone and dialogue. Early and late episodes where “Crystal Lake” has to appease the IP gods result in heavy-handed dialogue, even by genre standards; to wit: As Jason declares aloud that he’s “not like the other kids,” Pam reassures him that’s because “he’s stronger.” That melodramatic approach is indicative of its tonal imbalance, often switching between that and darker comedic bits, complete with some goofy (complimentary!) gory kills. The series works much better when it’s in that latter mode than the former. But perhaps the most frustrating part is the need to give Jason a dedicated origin for the supernatural abilities he’ll eventually possess; like most horror villain backstories, it would be better to just leave it a mystery.
The show rounds out in the middle after it establishes its supporting cast and begins to juxtapose them with Pam and her storied history. In fact, “Crystal Lake” comes alive as it compares and contrasts Pam’s grief with the anguish of those around her. The show’s best move is aligning her with a young girl, Grace (Gwendolyn Sundstrom), who is stuck in a bad situation at home, then pairing her with Chief Brooks, who arrived in Crystal Lake with his own set of secrets. When “Crystal Lake” swims, it’s because Cardellini and Catlett are mining incredible pathos from the material. Cardellini makes Pam’s descent into madness completely understandable, even as the material threatens to undermine her stellar performance. Catlett is a revelation in how he adds dimensionality to a small-town police chief and is easily the breakout performer for me. Joy Suprano also stands out for her savvy comedic timing, elevating what might otherwise be a thankless supporting role.
Despite narrative frustrations, “Crystal Lake” is full of craft. Directors Michael Lennox, Celine Held & Logan George and Quyen Tran render the on-location, New Jersey production with luscious colors and techniques before moving to Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, where the original film was shot. It’s a move that adds welcome connective tissue to the larger franchise, supplementing it rather than being subservient to it. Also staggering is the makeup and prosthetic work of Rich Krusell and Noah Rivers, who respectively make the kills in this series brutal. A handful of moments managed to shock my otherwise dulled nerve endings when it comes to these gory kills.
The long, winding road to a “Friday the 13th” series is almost as extensive and storied as the franchise itself, dating back roughly 23 years and involving a whole different showrunner (Bryan Fuller of “Hannibal” fame, whose version of the show I’m sad we won’t see). In trying to appease so many different masters, the series often feels derivative of itself in a way that hurts it rather than helping.
While not without merit, “Crystal Lake” is too often stuck in the shadow of its franchise elephant for it to succeed on its own terms.
“Crytal Lake” premieres Thursday on Peacock.