Crystal Lake Review: ★★½☆☆ (2.5/5)
Crystal Lake delivers old-school slasher fun, with bloody kills and a strong lead performance from Linda Cardellini. But eight episodes are too many, and the big origin reveal is simple and comes far too late.
Rating: ★★½☆☆ (2.5/5)
Platform: Peacock
Genre: Horror
Episodes: 8
Creator: Brad Caleb Kane
Cast: Linda Cardellini, Callum Vinson, William Catlett
Here is something nice to say about Crystal Lake right away. It does not feel like most horror on TV today. It is not a remake in disguise, a family drama in a scary costume, or a story where every monster stands for hidden feelings. It is a plain, bloody slasher show based on the Friday the 13th series, and in the first few episodes, that simple approach is a breath of fresh air.
The show begins at Camp Crystal Lake, where Pam Voorhees, played by Linda Cardellini, works as a cook. Her young son Jason, played by Callum Vinson, is at camp too. In line with the old lore, he drowns during an unwatched swim while the teen lifeguards are busy sneaking away in a shed. All this happens before the title card even appears.
Nine months later, Pam is still lost in grief. Every day she visits the lake where Jason disappeared. The camp closed after the accident, partly because his body was never found, but now it is getting ready to reopen. Pam does not want to heal. “I want to find my son,” she says. That line sets up a sad and scary mix, because hurt people hurt others, and Pam hurts a lot of people along the way.
Some are strangers who wake her buried anger. Some are co-workers who cannot understand her. Some are bad men from her past, and one is the kind local police chief Levon Brooks, played by William Catlett, whose crush on Pam blinds him to her strange behavior. Catlett is one of the show’s best parts, especially in moments where the quiet town is shaken by bizarre killings.
On style, the show delivers. It uses freeze-frame cuts, loud screeching music, and plenty of gruesome blood, just like the slashers it honors. Cardellini is excellent, moving easily between a lonely recluse and a wild, reckless woman.
She also drops hints about a mysterious past, including a scary corporation, a locked yellow door, and nightmares of Jason coming back to life. The question is why Pam is so sure her son is not really gone.
Sadly, the answer is where the trouble begins. It all comes out in episode seven, a flashback episode that arrives right when the show should be wrapping up. This is a growing trend in TV mysteries, and here it feels especially annoying.
The reveal tries to trace Pam and Jason’s violent nature back to one past trauma, and it is far too simple. Then the final episode ties everything up in a quick, empty way, without much help from the first six hours. If you add it up, one hour of origin and one hour of consequences sounds like a two-hour story. In other words, a movie.
There is another issue. Slasher films work because they are short and sharp, living on creative kills and a great twist. Over eight hours, it is hard to keep the tension high, especially when you can tell which new characters are only there to be killed. Some recurring characters even vanish without a proper death scene.
To its credit, the show does not try to make Pam a victim or turn her into a symbol. She is simply a bad person, and the series is brave enough to let her be very bad. That is its biggest strength.
Still, the story does not match the bloody creativity of the kills. Fans might be happier leaving the mystery of Pam Voorhees to their own imagination.
If you are planning more weekend viewing, our review of Tyson looks at Netflix’s gripping but uncomfortable boxing documentary. For a tense Netflix thriller, our review of The Trap is worth a read, and for something more emotional, our review of VisionQuest covers Marvel’s trilogy finale with Paul Bettany and James Spader.
Crystal Lake is now streaming on Peacock.