Jason Voorhees Returns in First Official Trailer for 'Friday the 13th' Prequel Series

Published Sep 13, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT

A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he's an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, '70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, '90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they're good, and maybe even more when they're bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed "Canuxploitation."

An expert on Marvel Comics, he has also written for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and is a member of the Marvel Research Team. He can frequently be found pontificating on comic-book continuity or bemoaning the misfortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his Twitter account.

Jason Voorhees has been to Manhattan, outer space, and Hell, but now he's heading to uncharted territory: television. For the first time in 17 years, the Friday the 13th franchise is back, and for the first time ever, it's returning as a Peacock original series. Next month, the new prequel series Crystal Lake premieres on the streamer, which just dropped a new trailer to tease the series in all its retro-slasher glory (and gore).

Complicated legal contortions have kept Jason off the silver screen for almost two decades now. After the original 11-movie franchise concluded with 2003's monster mash Freddy vs. Jason, it was rebooted in 2009 by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes production company. That film was a financial success, but failed to spawn a franchise, thanks to legal entanglements with the ownership of the original 1980 Friday the 13th and its intellectual property. But now, that red tape's been slashed, and Jason's back...and so, most importantly, is the murderous mom who kicked off the series.

In the new trailer, set in the sunny summer of 1971, Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini, taking on the role played by Betsy Palmer in the original film) is the lunch lady at Camp Crystal Lake, and also mother to a disabled child, Jason (Callum Vinson). When neglectful camp counselors let Jason drown, Pamela is driven to violent grief and madness. Soon, counselors start turning up dead in all sorts of hideous ways, and the local cops are on Pamela's trail. Oh, and she's also convinced Jason is still out there somehow, which seems implausible, but fans of the franchise know he grows up to be the lumbering, hockey-masked slasher who made the franchise iconic. Will we learn how he went from drowning victim to machete maniac in this series? You'll have to tune in when all eight episodes of Crystal Lake drop on Peacock on October 15.

Who Are the Creatives Behind 'Crystal Lake'?

Crystal Lake is created, showrun, written, and executive produced by Brad Caleb Kane, a writer and producer on one of last year's biggest TV horror hits, IT: Welcome to Derry. It's also executive produced by Robert M. Barsamian, Robert P. Barsamian, Stuart Manashil, Tyson Bidner, Michael Lennox, and Roy Lee, as well as the original writer of Friday the 13th, Victor Miller (who passed away last month) and Miller's attorney, Marc Toberoff, who represented him in his successful suit to reclaim the script's copyright.

Image via Peacock.

Crystal Lake will premiere exclusively on Peacock on October 15. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

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  Pamela Voorhees

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  William Catlett

  Levon Brooks

• Cameron Scoggins

  Dorf

• Danielle Kotch

  Claudette