It would be a shame (for the producers, we've been covered since 1980, the year of the first project, or 1989 when Jason took Manhattan and camp could never find a sweeter peak) kotzam Friday the 13th stay at 12 films. With a +1 looming, and that being the entertainment flavor of the season, we also get the key number
So +1 will be a series, «Crystal Lake,» commissioned by Peacock and produced by A24 and screenwriter and producer Bryan Fuller. Nothing is known about the plot, but we should expect it to be set in the 1950s, which is where the story of little Jason and his kind-hearted mother theoretically began.
His film series Friday the 13th is, of course, a result of the craze that began in 1978. The Night of the Masks, It may not be the first PoV slasher, but it is the most successful and the best, a craze that, especially from 1978 to 1981, spawned dozens upon dozens of slasher productions of dubious prestige, unquestionable entertainment value, and widespread critical, theoretical, and semiotic controversy.
The success of Jason's franchise was on the decline, but as budgets were always modest (the first nine films, released between 1980 and 1993 never exceeded $5 million, while they basically cost less than $3 million!), they were all big hits.
Fuller, in turn, has expressed great love for the franchise from time to time, especially for Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), even dressing up as Pamela in public in 2017. You can't help but love him—and he automatically gets the nod.
The possibility of a series that shifts the focus from Jason to his mother is therefore particularly interesting, as it will be intriguing to see how the villain issue is addressed in racial (as opposed to purely psychoanalytical) terms. Will she be the «bad guy»? Will we see interesting developments in the «mother-son» theme, and will there be enough ambition to introduce a more theoretical reflection on the gaze-gender of the lens and the object? The story can handle it, as can the entire slasher genre, so we'll have to wait and see. The filming period has not yet been announced.
