Crystal Lake: what is the bloody prequel to Friday the 13th worth? (critical)

The franchise returns to the origins of the massacre with a series centered on Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother. A generously gory prequel, carried by a formidable Linda Cardellini, who sometimes struggles to justify its 8 episodes.

Almost half a century after the theatrical release of Friday the 13th, the horror classic by Sean S. Cunningham, which revolutionized the genre and spawned a string of sequels and variations around Jason Voorhees, the franchise returns to its roots with Crystal Lake. A series that aims to put the gore back at the center of the village: before the killer in the hockey mask, there was Pamela, his mother. She was indeed the killer in the original film and it is once again she who takes center stage in this brutal prequel, where Linda Cardellini plays a woman bereaved by the drowning of her son – Jason – and who tries as best she can to rebuild herself. But when body parts begin to appear in the surrounding woods and mysterious strangers arrive in town, Pamela’s troubled past resurfaces…

Imagined by Brad Caleb Kane, already at the helm of the formidable prequel to It, Welcome to Derry (also on HBO Max), Crystal Lake once again succeeds in bringing new blood to a cult franchise. The result is still…