The American streaming service Peacock has released Crystal Lake, a prequel to the famous horror film series Friday the 13th. The action takes place in the 1970s and focuses not so much on the future maniac Jason Voorhees as on his mother, Pamela. The role was played by actress Linda Cardellini. The series' creators told the New York Comic Con festival how they explored the transformation of a caring mother into a killer.
The idea's author, Brad Kane, explained that he wanted to fill the gap between Jason's drowning, which viewers know from the films, and the appearance of his mother in the first picture. In the original Friday the 13th, Pamela Voorhees appears on screen for only ten minutes. According to Kane, this character deserved a story of her own. He wanted to show her path from a loving mother to the woman known from the film, and stressed that she was not born a psychopath.
We don't see the foundation of their relationship. We don't see her and Jason as people before everything happened.
— Brad Kane, creator of the series
Linda Cardellini said she was drawn to the chance to play a woman who was the original killer in the famous film series, yet about whom almost nothing is known. The actress describes her character as a real woman and mother who has come to a new town trying to escape her past, but who carries a hidden rage. In her words, Pamela tries to be a good mother, but she is tormented by guilt and shame over mistakes she believes she made. Cardellini considers these feelings to be closely tied to her character's anger.
The role of young Jason, a boy with serious physical differences, was played by twelve-year-old Callum Vinson. The actor said he had been a fan of the character since childhood, although he was not allowed to watch the films. In his words, it was hard to find the real person behind the image of a horror icon. Linda Cardellini added that the innocence the young actor brought to the role created a wonderful relationship between mother and son on screen and helped her discover new sides of the character.
Other residents of the lakeside town appear in the series as well. Among them is Sheriff Levon, who develops a relationship with Pamela. The actor playing the role, William Cattlett, said that his character, who has himself lost a wife, sees in Pamela a person going through loss and wants to help her. He sees good in her, but then she begins to kill people.
One of the challenges for Linda Cardellini was portraying Pamela's inner world after the death of her son. Jason continues to live in her mind. The actress explained that for scenes in which she talks with her son, the production team tried different approaches. Sometimes she conducted the dialogue with an imaginary partner, and sometimes she spoke his lines herself, to understand how they should sound in her head.
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