'Crystal Lake' review: Linda Cardellini's Peacock is the best 'Friday the 13th' property yet (which isn't saying much)

The Emmy winner stars as Pamela Voorhees, the mother of a missing special needs child, in this prequel/adaptation/reimagining of the iconic slasher film.

As someone who spent countless hours in the 90's trawling the bestseller shelves with friends looking for or waiting for a Friday the 13th return that we haven't seen or haven't seen recently - I apologize for the time wasted guys - the confession of "What's the best Friday the 13th movie?" It's a trick question

Unlike the Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises, there are no clear credits on Friday the 13th - just minor gradations in the quality of the make-up effects or the creativity of the kills. I appreciate the last episode for the weirdness of Crispin Glover's performance, the third episode for the hilarious 3D effects, and even the second episode because director Steven Miner knew where to put the camera, something that can't be said for all of his successors.

'Crystal Lake' Offers More Brutal Kills Than The Movies, Go Jason's Backstory

The sex-trafficking trial of the Alexander brothers was explored in the trailer "Real Estate Wolves" by Peacock.

Bloody goes well beyond the low bar set by the movies.

Actors: Linda Cardellini, William Catlett, Davin Kessler, Cameron Scoggins, Gwendolyn Sunstrom

However, it's safe to say that Peacock's Crystal Lake is the best entry in the franchise. The arrival of Linda Cardellini in 8 Hours as Pamela Voorhees raised hopes for a level of quality that none of the previous films could, with or without tantalizing revelations like "where Jason's mom got that amazing jacket."

In fact, Crystal Lake lives up to that very reasonable level of potential, thanks to newly minted Emmy winner Cardellini, who delivers her best Friday the 13th performance to date.

Is the series beyond Cardellini good? It is always difficult to say

Following a pattern that eventually worked so well on A&E's Bates Motel , occasionally on Amazon's newly released Carrie , and almost exclusively on Netflix's Ratched , Crystal Lake deserves credit for taking a narrative stretch that could have been silly and making it serious, albeit in familiar TV ways. But that means Crystal Lake takes itself more seriously than its patrons want or can justify.

Most episodes are at least 50 minutes long, and after a fairly promising start, there's a multi-episode delay before the onslaught of season finale episodes, which include a wild reconfiguration of the events of the first film, as well as an entirely original flashback episode that plays like the oddball love child of David Cronenberg and Douglas Sirk.

In the end, Crystal Lake is better than it should be, sometimes because it's twisted, fun, and sometimes just because of the easy comfort of low expectations.

After a media introduction with Pamela Cardellini playing herself in the mirror, covered in blood, the story flashes back nine months and we meet a cleaner Pamela working in the kitchen at Camp Crystal Lake in New Jersey.

At first, camp is heaven for 11-year-old Jason Voorhees (Callum Vinson).

Jason has all sorts of birth defects that make him mocked by the cruel campers, but he does have one friend, fellow outcast Grace (Gwendolyn Sundstrom). He also has the passionate love of Pamela, who tries to be a constant presence in Jason's life, even getting him a mailbox of camping gear such as a tent, outdoor cookware, and a machete.

"You use it to clear brush and get rid of obstacles, making your way," Pamela helpfully explains, a line of dialogue that most viewers would probably miss due to the maniacal giggles of the How Jason Voorhees Got His First Machete origin story.

Things don't go well for poor Jason, who isn't a very good swimmer to begin with—his deformed head makes buoyancy a challenge—and then goes swimming unsupervised.

Why does he lack supervision? Because counselors Claudette (Daniel Koch) and Barry (Phoenix Panwick) chose to go to the barn for Nookie instead of watching their campers.

In the present day, which is actually 1971 or 1972, we see a distracted and sad Pamela. The Crystal Lake community wants to support, especially Levon (William Catlett), a widower with a dark past and a crush on Pamela and her exceptional jacket. Levon, the local sheriff, asks Pamela to stick a bowl and go to the town picnics, but Pamela can't go ahead - especially since Jason's body was never found after her. Drowning

For a while, Crystal Lake hews to the very basic mythology introduced in Sean Cunningham's original film. The structure is such that devoted fans can point out city landmarks, camp architecture and appearances by familiar characters including Ralph (Nick Cordileone), the "Don't Go to Crystal Lake" maniac. The man in the movie is now a Vietnam veteran suffering from severe PTSD.

Then strange things start happening that don't match anything in the movies, including the arrival of two menacing men who show up and ask questions about Pamela's past, bringing out the worst — or best — in our heroine since Pamela Voorhees: Non-Violent Lunch Lady is not a show anyone's been watching.

For a while, Crystal Lake suffered from many of the same problems that plagued the first season of Bates Motel - namely, too many incongruous elements that didn't even thematically relate to things (hockey masks, nudity) that resonated in the movies.

Show creator Brad Caleb Kane seems to throw random things at the wall, especially elements for an overarching plot that sounds like something out of a dozen Stephen King novels rather than Friday the 13th. There's a hard-nosed journalist (Dovyn Kessler as Levon's sister, Brianna) who has no purpose for long. Even when she does come in handy, it's complimentary in a way that could almost have been removed from the story entirely. There's even an entire episode in an EST-style retreat, a very long and entertaining romp that shows Pamela's path to empowerment reaching a fork in the road where she must choose between sassy self-actualization or shredding negligent counselors.

I didn't care for the EST episode, because it's one of those moments that paid off in the early 70s. That doesn't quite make Pamela Voorhees a feminist icon, but if you set your story in the days of Manson-inspired paranoia, Nixon-inspired institutional distrust, and the burgeoning ERA-era ratification movement, the gut-wrenching reaction of a heartbroken mother trying to raise her child with special needs and then bereavement resonates.

The early episodes have a gritty look, with washed-out colors and dirty, worn-out cars and exteriors. Michael Lennox, whose credits run the gamut from Door Girls to Say Nothing, strikes an interesting balance between grounded realism, campy performances, brooding settings, upbeat soundtrack choices, and intense violence.

So extreme people in Crystal Lake are constantly dispatched in ways that offer the most shredded flesh, boiling blood and oozing entrails. Why would you simply stab someone when you could just rip their face off and then do something even more disgusting to finish it off before disposing of the corpse in a worse way? My instinct is that more of the violence is CG-based than action, but if you're coming to Crystal Lake expecting to go "Ew!" And episodes want you to sit around for 45 minutes during which nothing happens, at least there's killing to be done. And they do.

Without spoiling too much, it's the sixth and then seventh installment directed by the duo of Celine Held and Logan George, followed by former cinematographer Kevin Tran, who kicks the show into high gear before a nice finale. The flashback episode, with its color scheme and overall tone drawn from 1950s melodramas and 1970s conspiracy thrillers, was an hour where I found myself thoroughly and unapologetically loving Crystal Lake, as opposed to wondering what the show's column would become after the tributes dried up.

The main reason to keep watching is Cardellini who makes Pamela her own, following in the footsteps of Betsy Palmer's excellent and extensive work in the first film. Cardellini plays her as a strong but fragile woman, chasing the childless goal she's built her life around, but is always on the verge of falling apart. Don't worry, the breakdown starts in a hurry and Cardellini is terrifying, if perhaps not as sympathetic as the series needs long term.

Fortunately, Sundstrom generates enough sympathy on her own, giving a sweet and vulnerable performance as the only Crystal Lake character you really don't want to see die. Koch and Parnwick, as negligent counselors, provoke the opposite reaction as two characters whose fates are both inevitable and earned.

Cattle is a welcome addition to the show, and I never cared what his secret was from his days as a cop in Newark, but the actor has a solid screen presence and there's borderline sweetness in the flirtation between him and Pamela, two damaged souls.

Other standouts include Manon Gage as a troubled hippie. A very hungry brown bear; Joy Soprano as a young feminist who befriends Pamela. and prolific television presence as a guest star in the second half of the season.

It's already a more prominent performance than the entire film, a reminder that working with trashy IP is a safer bet than trying to dress up a classic. (Of course, Bates Motel got better and better as it went on, even as it got closer and closer to the key events of Psycho.)

Crystal Lake may have moved beyond the episodes of the Friday the 13th franchise that had me watching back-to-back movies without thinking any of them were really "good." So even if the seeds planted for future seasons don't fill me with optimism for more Crystal Lake, my low expectations have already been exceeded once.