When production on the first season of “It: Welcome to Derry” came to an end, showrunner and writer Brad Caleb Kane didn’t know if the show would be a success or or get renewed. He was trying to figure out what his next gig would be, and when he heard about a new show called “Crystal Lake,” he wasn’t passive. After a few cold calls and discussions, Kane was able to land the job as showrunner of the new series.
“I pitched a billion people at Peacock and A24, and eventually they hired me,” he said.
A prequel to the “Friday the 13th” franchise spanning eight episodes, “Crystal Lake” revolves around Pamela Voorhees (played by Linda Cardellini) after her son, Jason, drowns. A year after his death, murders start to happen. The series is currently streaming on Peacock.
Rough Draft caught up with Kane at SCADFILM’s recent “IN FOCUS: The Art of Fear” event. According to Kane, The “Friday the 13th” films were something of a gateway drug to the career he has now.
“I loved these movies and exploitation movies growing up,” he said. “I grew up in NYC and [we had] these beautiful 1,500-seater [theaters] that no longer exist. They were movie palaces, but at the time were crumbling and playing movies that came out every week, which were these slasher movies. They played to full houses. They were bloody, and they appealed to everyone’s basic instinct. You saw them on a Saturday night and had a good time, a collective experience with a bunch of other people in the dark.”
The Emmy-winning Cardellini was the only actress Kane pictured as he fleshed out Pamela Voorhees, the murderer from the end of the original film. But, as he wrote the pilot, he had no idea if she was available.
“I did not know what she was doing, and if she would be interested in doing more horror,” he said. “She had done a little bit of it. The network had lists of people they were interested in, very good names, lots of talented people. I really [didn’t] want to meet with any of them. I said, ‘I have one person in mind and it’s Linda Cardellini. If that doesn’t work out, I will entertain your lists.’”
Kane later flew out to meet the actress. What he envisioned as a 45-minute conversation turned into five hours. Cardellini agreed to take on the role not long after, with the two bonding over an interest in telling dark stories about the human condition.
Kane feels that Pamela’s love for her son is the basis for the entire movie series.
“You only see Pamela Voorhees for about 10 minutes at the end of the first movie, but she looms so large across the whole series,” he said. “The basis of that presence – even though you don’t see her – is the relationship between her and Jason. It felt like fertile ground to go back and see those years, to see what his drowning meant to her.”
Despite the successes of the “Friday the 13th” films, the critical reaction to the first movie was savage.
“I’m not saying anything surprising when I say that ‘Friday the 13th’ was a ‘Halloween’ knock off,” Kane said. “The first one was made to make money, to take advantage of the groundswell of people wanting more slasher movies. It was a surprise hit – people wanted that catharsis. They were only supposed to do one, because the villain at the end gets her head lopped off.
“But they made one after the other and made Jason the killer. To some degree, this movie and others after it – any slasher knock-offs – were cynical cash grabs in a lot of ways. They always influenced and thrilled a whole generation of people and inspired [them]. They mean more now to us who grew up on them than I think the intent was. That makes them no less meaningful.”
Kane knows that he won’t satisfy everyone with his interpretation of Pamela Voorhees’ story. So, his goal was simple – just please himself.
“I don’t think there is any way to please everybody, especially when you are working on a property that means so much to so many and that people have such a personal relationship to, like I do,” he said. “I think it’s a bad idea to approach it from the view of ‘how do I please the fans,’ because I am a fan, an original fan. What do I want to see from a ‘Friday the 13th’ project, as a kid growing up on them, but also as an adult?”
With “Crystal Lake,” Kane wanted to marry two aesthetics – to take the feel of the “Friday the 13th” lore that he loves and merge it with character, motivation, and emotion.
“That is a very delicate needle to thread and hopefully I have achieved it to some degree,” he said.
