PLOT: After the apparent drowning of her young son, dark secrets emerge from the past of Crystal Lake resident Pamela Voorhees, setting the stage for a descent into bloodshed, madness, and the twisted origins of a horror icon.
REVIEW: The Friday the 13th franchise doesn’t only exist on the movie screen. Over the decades, the series has been expanded with the creation of video games, multiple comic books from the likes of Topps, Avatar Press, and WildStorm/DC (including Jason vs. Leatherface and Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash crossover comics), a quartet of books about people being possessed by the spirit of iconic slasher Jason Voorhees, a series of Friday the 13th and Jason X novels, and, of course, novelizations of some of the films. Freddy vs. Jason, Jason X, the first three movies, and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI all received novelizations back in the days before the franchise became severely hampered by developmental and legal issues. (In fact, Friday the 13th Part III has two separate novelizations, because the ‘80s were wild.)
After seventeen years of court cases and false starts, Friday the 13th has finally returned to our screens in the form of the prequel series Crystal Lake, which comes our way from production company A24 and the Peacock streaming service. And, to the great joy of fans around the world, A24 has chosen to celebrate this momentous occasion by expanding the literary side of the franchise as well, tasking author Tim Waggoner with writing a novelization that covers all eight episodes of Crystal Lake’s first season. Waggoner was a great choice for the job because, in addition to his own original works, he has a lot of experience writing for franchises, having written books that tie-in with A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, Dungeons and Dragons, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural, and more. His previous novelizations include Halloween Kills, Terrifier 2, Terrifier 3, and A24’s X trilogy – so the company knew they were leaving Pamela and Jason Voorhees in good hands when they hired Waggoner for this one.
I have always been a fan of the concept of novelizations. There’s something really fun about seeing the story of a cool movie (or, in this case, TV show) laid out on the page. That said, I have read some really underwhelming novelizations that seem like the writer put zero effort into them; rather than expanding what was in the script and getting into the minds of the characters, they seem to have simply translated the story from one format into another and left it at that. Thankfully, that is not what Waggoner has done with the Crystal Lake novelization.
In 400+ pages, Waggoner covers the entire story of Crystal Lake season 1, and throughout the story he gives us insight into the thought processes of various characters. The most important of those characters is, of course, the lead – grieving mother Pamela Voorhees, whose young son Jason drowns at Camp Crystal Lake early in the story. That event, along with the appearance of two men who know dark secrets about Pam’s past (and want to drag her back into the bad place she came from), sends Pam spiralling into madness, and it isn’t long before bloody bodies start piling up in the small town of Crystal Lake.
Chief of Police Levon Brooks, Officer Dorf, Brooks’ journalist sister Briana, locals like Enos, Rita, Trudy, and Crazy Ralph, Jason’s only friend Grace, teen camp counselors Barry and Claudette, a group of ill-fated hippies, they’re all present and accounted for. Fans who have already watched Crystal Lake before diving into the novelization will recognize the scenes and dialogue, but Waggoner gives the added enhancement of letting us know what the characters are thinking in the moment.
It’s also interesting to see which scenes Waggoner chose to have play in full (which is most of them), and which he decided would work better as passing moments that characters are thinking back on. For example, the first couple of scenes Briana has in the show are now just moments that Chief Brooks thinks of while dealing with other things, and the scene where the hippies interact with Pam and celebrate her brownies is another that was left as a character’s afterthought. But don’t worry, the really important moments are all there.
Jason’s body was never recovered from the lake after he drowned, and it doesn’t take long for Crystal Lake to confirm that he survived and is now lurking out in the woods. But he’s different – bigger, feral, and dangerous. The show leaves a lot of lingering questions of why Jason changed so much after his drowning. Why didn’t he just go home to his mother? How did he go from being a nice kid to a feral killer? Waggoner doesn’t have all of the answers, but he does give us a better understanding of what’s going on with Jason. He takes us into the mind of the character, showing us his post-drowning perspective. Now, some moments make a bit more obvious sense than they did on the screen.
That’s exactly what a good novelization should do: cover the familiar moments, give us insight into the perspectives of various characters, and attempt to smooth out any rough edges in the storytelling. That is what Tim Waggoner has done with his Crystal Lake novelization, giving Friday the 13th fans a great new book to add to their collections.
Here’s hoping that we’ll be getting more seasons of Crystal Lake – and that when we do, Waggoner will be writing novelizations of them.
Copies of the Crystal Lake novelization are available for purchase through the A24 Shop. There’s also a 10 hour and 46 minute audiobook edition, read by Abigail Reno.
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