Hollywood hasn't unleashed Jason Voorhees on horror movie audiences since 2009. Back then, Jason had mostly been reduced to a Flanderized version of himself in entertaining cash grabs like Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason. (Not to pretend that the early films had that much depth, but they were marginally more creative than "Jason goes to space.") The 2009 reboot, titled simply Friday the 13th, attempted to relaunch the franchise from a fresh slate. It failed miserably (despite making a killing at the box office) and set the entire franchise back for over a decade.

In the years since, Hollywood has struggled to bring Jason back to theaters, mostly due to complex rights issues over the character and his iconic hockey mask. But in 2026, Jason is finally back — sort of. A new series from A24 and Peacock, titled Crystal Lake after the body of water where Jason drowned as a boy and later emerged as a monster, serves as a prequel, depicting Jason's tragic death and how it pushes his mother, Pamela Voorhees, past the point of no return.

Crystal Lake notably does not feature the iconic hockey mask (again, legal issues), and in its place offers a smorgasbord of new plot details to help explain how Jason becomes Jason and Pamela becomes ( spoiler alert for a 46-year-old movie ) the killer in the original Friday the 13th . Along the way, Crystal Lake introduces so many plot changes and secret backstories that it can be hard to keep up.

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