Entertainment

Linda Cardellini Plays the Hunter in 'Crystal Lake,' Peacock's 'Friday the 13th' Prequel Premiering Oct. 15

Putri ArdhanaPublished 2w ago3 min readBased on 6 sources
Linda Cardellini Plays the Hunter in 'Crystal Lake,' Peacock's 'Friday the 13th' Prequel Premiering Oct. 15
Photo by Daniel Benavides from Austin, TX / CC BY 2.0

Linda Cardellini will play Pamela Voorhees — the mother of Jason Voorhees — in Crystal Lake, an eight-episode prequel series to Friday the 13th premiering on Peacock on 15 October 2026. The series is a collaboration between Peacock and A24, produced as a television prequel to the long-running horror franchise (Peacock).

Pamela Voorhees first appeared in the original Friday the 13th film in 1980 as Jason's mother. In the franchise's lore, she exacts revenge on the people she believed were responsible for Jason's drowning in 1957 at Camp Crystal Lake. Crystal Lake follows Pamela's life in the period before the events of that first film, portraying her as a single mother with a sickly son (Variety; YouTube).

William Catlett co-stars as Levon Brooks (Variety).

Cardellini spoke about the series at the HBO Max Emmy Nominee Celebration event in Hollywood, where she was attending to celebrate her nomination for her work in DTF St. Louis. She told Variety that Crystal Lake is an eight-episode, longer-format series rather than 90 minutes of pure horror, giving the story room to breathe across multiple hours.

She also said the show does not hold back on gore. Practical effects deliver moments she called "pretty gross," with "blood everywhere at one point" (Variety).

What makes the role unusual for Cardellini is the side of the horror equation she lands on. Most horror scripts she is offered, she said, cast her as a character running away from the killer. In Crystal Lake, she plays the one doing the chasing (Variety).

Cardellini recalled seeing Freddy vs. Jason at the Universal City Walk movie theatre at the height of its popularity, placing her inside the franchise's fandom well before she joined it (Variety).

For fans of the franchise, Crystal Lake offers something the films never did: a sustained look at Pamela Voorhees before she became the killer audiences met in 1980. The series runs eight episodes on Peacock, launching 15 October 2026.

Related Articles