Watching the Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake, I get the feeling that the more reverence you have for the original Friday the 13th movie, the more you’ll enjoy this show. A lot of fans give the first movie a lower placement in their rankings; they prefer the sequels where Jason Voorhees was the killer, rather than the original, where the murders were carried out by his mother, Pamela. I love the sequels myself – but I also feel that the first movie is severely overrated and too often gets overshadowed by its follow-ups. I truly believe that the original Friday the 13th is one of the greatest horror movies ever made, and definitely one of the best and creepiest slasher movies of all time. So there were times in Crystal Lake when I was in a sort of state of bliss, with a big smile on my face, seeing how much love and respect for the first Friday the 13th on display here. (Even if showrunner Brad Caleb Kane did change the timeline of some events from 1957 / ‘58 to 1971 / ‘72.)
One of the best Friday the 13th recreations / tributes comes along in the fifth episode of the series – and that’s immediately followed by a surprising subversion of expectations. A twist. A swerve.
But before we get there, the body of the hippie girl Willow, killed in the previous episode, has been identified and “town crazy” Ralph (Nick Cordileone) has been arrested for her murder since her body was found strung up on his property. Ralph didn’t kill the girl and Chief of Police Levon Brooks (William Catlett) doesn’t believe he did – but it’s not looking good for Ralph, and Officer Dorf (Cameron Scoggins) is fully convinced that he’s guilty.
Dorf is a well-meaning but fairly pathetic character, and in this episode we get a glimpse of his home life, which helps us understand why he’s always trying to build himself up and prove himself. His ailing father Hamish (Neal Huff) is an unpleasant bastard, a racist who believes Dorf should have Brooks’ job, and Dorf has to put up with him all the time because he lives in the man’s basement, where he opens his mail (he purchased some Spanish Fly) and unsuccessfully tries to practice his shuriken-throwing skills. Not one of the ninja stars he throws at the target he has hanging on his wall sticks.
Brooks lets Willow’s hippie friends – Harmony (Manon Gage), Stella Blue (Lark White), Gabe (Philip Themio Stoddard), Rhiannon (April Consalo), Plato (Nate Kelderman), Shutterbug (Drew Scheid, who was previously killed by Michael Myers in the 2018 Halloween), and Space Ghost (Albert DiCesare) – know what happened, and when he asks what they’ve been up to the last few days, Camp Crystal Lake counselor Barry (Phoenix Parnevik) confirms that they’ve been working at the camp the whole time. That gets Barry pulled into their circle… which is exactly what he has been wanting, since he has been drooling over Harmony and his girlfriend Claudette (Danielle Kotch) isn’t putting out anymore.
Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini), the camp cook, spots Brooks while he’s at the camp and tries to set up a date, but he puts their relationship on ice for the moment. He’s tired of Pam’s hot-and-cold, push-and-pull routine. Pam is also having bad luck with her interactions with her supposedly late son’s friend Grace (Gwendolyn Sundstrom), who she has been trying to take under her wing since murdering the kid’s mom a couple of episodes ago, but Grace is more drawn to the hippies. In fact, when the hippies say they’re going to be skipping town soon, Grace asks to go with them and they say they will… Until they realize she’s a minor and that would be illegal.
Harmony has told Grace that she has a guardian angel watching over her. As much as Pam would like to be that guardian angel, it doesn’t seem like she really is. Given what we saw at the end of episode 2 and the beginning of episode 3, the being that Harmony senses watching over Grace might actually be Jason.
15 minutes into this episode, Camp Crystal Lake is open for business for the summer and a stream of youngsters come flooding in. So, twice in one season, Crystal Lake gives us something that we haven’t seen in the Friday the 13th franchise in a long time – not since Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI in 1986 (aside from some dream moments in Freddy vs. Jason back in 2003). The sight of an open, populated Camp Crystal Lake. It’s pretty cool, and I had long hoped for another F13 that would take place at an operational camp.
In one interesting moment, Pam comforts a young camper who’s scared and can’t sleep because he saw “the monster” lurking in the woods. A monster that he associates with a campfire story he heard about a boy named Jason, who drowned and now haunts the woods. Pam assures the camper that Jason was a nice, sweet boy who wouldn’t hurt anyone… But that monster talk is intriguing and might get Pam’s hopes up that her son really is out there in the woods. Of course, viewers know that he is. And he’s not the nice, sweet, harmless boy he used to be.
The camper’s counselor is Barry, who isn’t around much because he’s always pursuing the hippie girl – and Harmony doesn’t stay away from him, even after Claudette warns her to keep her distance. For his part, Barry doesn’t have much interest in spending time with Claudette since he knows it’s not going to lead to sex. Upset, Claudette goes off to the kitchen to cry – where she’s found by Pam, giving her another chance to console someone. During their talk, Claudette reveals that she was having sex with Barry when she was supposed to be watching Jason. The day he drowned.
Pam doesn’t say anything about that, but soon after we get a scene that shows how she has changed over the course of the season. In the first episode, she found a snake in the camp kitchen – and though she thought of chopping it with a cleaver, she didn’t. She put the snake in a pan and carried it out into the woods, where she set it loose. While processing what Claudette has confessed to her, she sees another snake slither across the floor of the kitchen… and this time, she does hack the snake to pieces with a cleaver. (A moment that’s also reminiscent of a scene in the first Friday the 13th.) I like the storytelling here.
In tribute of their fallen friend Willow, the hippies decide to drop some acid, a batch called Orange Sunshine, as they settle in for the night. Barry ruins Grace’s plans to leave with them when he makes them realize she’s a minor, which means she also gets left out when they’re dropping acid. But once Barry and Harmony get in the VW van with the intention of having sex, Grace drops multiple tabs of acid and heads off into the woods. Tripping, she thinks she sees Jason standing in the woods… and is he whispering her name?
Barry ditches Harmony when she’s receptive to having Shutterbug join them in a bisexual threesome, which Barry isn’t into. Hyping himself up with football chants and assuring himself that he’s not gay, Barry walks back to Camp Crystal Lake, where he finds Claudette playing guitar and having a sing-along with some other counselors beside a fireplace in one of the cabins. And this is where something wonderful happens: writer Karl Taro Greenfield and directors Celine Held and Logan George give us a recreation of moments from the opening sequence of the original Friday the 13th.
Barry joins the sing-along circle, like we saw in the 1980 movie. He makes eyes at Claudette. He manages to seduce her just by being present and singing along. Claudette passes the guitar over to another counselor – and while the sing-along continues, she and Barry sneak off to hook up in a storage barn. Just like we saw in ‘80.
Meanwhile, Pam wanders through a cabin full of sleeping campers to see that Barry isn’t in bed in the cabin, like he’s supposed to be. Fans of F13 will know exactly where this is heading: Barry and Claudette are about to be caught together in that barn and murdered. They were the first victims on Friday the 13th history.
Barry and Claudette are caught together in that barn. They are murdered, as we saw in the movie. But there’s more to the moment than we ever knew – and it will be interesting to see how Friday the 13th fans are going to react to this twist. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it at first myself, but I can accept what happens and I do think that, for the most part, the twist does make sense within the context of Crystal Lake. It doesn’t really alter how I feel about the murders of Barry and Claudette at the beginning of Friday the 13th.
One thing’s for sure: when you pair the sing-along and barn murder recreations with the “walk through town” recreation in the previous episode, Celine Held and Logan George truly proved to be experts at fan-service recreations, and those moments made this fan very happy.
Also, I think it’s pretty cool that Crystal Lake actually explained why Claudette asks Barry “Does Mary Ann kiss as good as I do?” when they’re in the barn. Now we know who Mary Ann is. It’s Harmony’s real name!
No comments:
Post a Comment