Crystal Lake Showrunner Promises “Rivers Of Blood” In The Upcoming Friday The 13th Prequel Series

Crystal Lake will not skimp on gore, according to showrunner Brad Caleb Kane

It’s been a big week for Friday The 13th news. Only yesterday we were talking about how a new film in the long-running slasher franchise is actively in development. Now comes some fresh dirt on the upcoming prequel series, Crystal Lake, from showrunner Brad Caleb Kane, who has promised “rivers of blood” for the franchise’s key gorehound demographic.

Kane, who is co-showrunner on HBO Max’s IT: Welcome To Derry, has been out banging the drum for that series’ last few episodes. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he fielded a few queries about the new series.

“In many ways, it’s a psychological thriller,” Kane said. “It’s a paranoid ’70s thriller. It has all of the DNA of a slasher without quite being a slasher. There are rivers of blood in the show. There are very, I think, ingenious kill sequences and deaths and murders, but it’s all done in service of character and theme and place and time.”

Co-produced by A24 and set to debut on US streamer Peacock some time in 2026 (local release TBA), Crystal Lake stars Linda Cardellini (Freaks And Geeks) as Pamela Voorhees, mother to franchise icon Jason Voorhees. As famously noted in Wes Craven’s OG Scream, Mrs. Voorhees was the killer in the original 1980 Friday The 13th, and will no doubt rack up a bossy count here, too.

Fans of a certain hockey mask-wearing mass murderer can rest assured that Jason is putting in an appearance, too, with Chucky‘s Callum Vinson taking on the role. Of course, this is the young and presumably innocent Jason, pre-drowning accident, so I wouldn’t expect much blood on his hands. Probably.

“I tried to think about Crystal Lake and a Friday The 13th prequel as, ‘What era did the first movie come out of?'” Kane went on to say. “It came out of the paranoid ’70s thriller era. It came out of the mistrust-of-institutions era. It came out of the women’s lib era, the National Organization for Women era, this consciousness-raising awakening era in America. I wanted to go and play with all of those themes.”

Which is an interesting take on a series more famous for tits and gore than any deeper themes, and I say that with the utmost love and respect.

More as it emerges from the lake.