Yesterday I told you all that today I was going to be reviewing the show Crystal Lake and well i've finally just watched the final episodes of the show. Bottom line being this show is so worth watching and it's a show that I can't wait to talk to you all about as the more eyes that this show has on it the better it will be for the franchise in the long run as hopefully it will cause people who perhaps didn't know of the films to go and start watching them and so then join me as I give you SPOILER FILLED review of the show that is so good with the show in question being called simply just "Crystal Lake" enjoy.
The plot of this show is nine months after the supposed death of her son Jason Pamela Voorhees still believe that he is out there somewhere and when dead bodies start showing up in Crystal Lake the search is on to see if Jason is still alive or not. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. Whilst the show is rightfully getting alot of praise for it's acting all of which it does deserve by the way it also deserves to get alot of praise for the plot as the shows plot is so fresh and different as while it would have been very easy for the show to just tell a generic origin story for both Pam and Jason it doesn't do it. Instead it takes a more complex approach to its story by having it be wrapped around the idea of a mother not being able to express the fact that the her son quite literally cannot die which is something that does make the shows plot feel new and different as now the show gets to have this unique point of view one that really hasn't been all that considered before now that being what was Pam up to both in the time before and the time after Jason had first drowned and that is a unique way to look at things and to be fair the shows plot can now be something that no one thought that t would be and that's it can now be good and while yes the stuff with the hippies isn't that good as it doesn't really lead to anything all that interesting on the whole the shows plot was a really good one with the plot of this show also being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this show is Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees , William Catlett as Levon Brooks and Gwendolyn Sundstrom as Grace. Also starring in this show is Cameron Scoggins as Dorf , Devin Kessler as Briana Brooks , Nick Cordileone as Ralph , Daniel Stewart Sherman as Enos , Bernadette Quigley as Trudy , Joy Suprano as Rita , Danielle Kotch as Claudette , Phoenix Parnevik as Barry , Brian J. Carter as John Christy , Nancy Nagrant as Kay Christy , Dan Thompson as Steve Christy , Manon Gage as Harmony , Oona Roche as Willow , Olivia Macklin as Trish , Callum Vinson as Jason Voorhees and Hamish Linklater as Elias Voorhees.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. With all of the shows actors turning in some really good performances and the show itself rightfully getting alot of praise for its acting as it is something that does deserve alot of praise with even the shows kid actors turning in some really good performances which in all fairness was something that that was quite surprising to see as nine times out of ten a kid actor in either a TV show or film is usually the worst of the lot and yet here they more then hold there own when acting with the shows more established actors. With the best actor in this show being Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees which granted is a slight cliche thing to say as nearly everyone who has seen this show agrees that she is just so good in it but it's also something that is worth saying again and to not say so would disingenuous as she is just so good in this show with her not only capturing the spirit of the Betsy Palmer version of the character but also adding enough of her own spin on the character to make Pam feel like her own and not just copying what Betsy Palmer did in 1980 with the character. With the acting that's in this very show really being helped by the fact that this shows scripts are just so good that all this shows actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very show.
The shows characters are a very mixed bag of affairs as while alot of them are really good there are some that just aren't that good. As not to sound like a broken record here but Pam was perhaps the best handled character out of the bunch due to the fact that in the first movie we really didn't get to spend alot of time with her before she revealed as being the main killer of the first Friday The 13th movie and therefor the makers of this film really went hog wild interms of fully fleshing out her characters as really the only thing that we knew about her character from that first film was the first that she loved her son Jason and that was it whereas here we do get to see what a devoted mother she was and we get to see things like her being a good bowler and her being a good cook both of which are small things yes but there also things that help to fully flesh out her character and make her more likable as not only a mother but as a character in her own right. However tho the show does have some really bad characters in it namely any of the hippie characters who are literally just there just to add to the body count as they add nothing to the shows plot which makes them feel like pointless characters with not one of them doing anything or saying anything that makes them memorable this is despite the fact that the characters themselves do appear in a very memorable sequence at the start of episode six and yet due to how very poorly done they are as characters we don't feel sorry for them rather we jump for joy when something bad does indeed happen to them and while Dork could be argued is a bad character as well he is meant to be more of the comedy relief character and in that regard he is harmless with him not really getting anything funny to say or do within the show itself and the same thing is true for the rest of the townsfolk as they harmless characters alot of which could have been alot more better.
SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whilst one might think that this film would cover all of the first Friday The 13th film this show stops just short of doing that. As the only real thing from the first film that it covers is the death of child Jason in episode one and the deaths of Barry and Claudette at the end of episode five and that's it and even then the show puts a spin on there deaths as while they do the whole POV thing that the first film did even down to having the character act very similarly to how they did in that film but when they die the episode then reveals that it wasn't Pam that killed them rather it was Grace which was honestly such a good reveal that when it happend I applauded the episode quite loudly as it was something that I never saw coming. Which is something that a good twist should do as we are all expecting them to just copy what they did in the first film and have it be Pam that kills them but by revealing that it was Grace that did it it then makes you wonder what else is going to happen differently from the first film and yet for no good reason that's where the show stops doing things in the first film as the rest of the show is mainly just its own thing that doesn't connect to the first film which is something that could be viewed as being a smart thing due to the fact that it does then open up the door for a potential second and maybe even third season of the show due to the fact that we know that Pam dies at the end of the first movie and with the show being centered around her it wouldn't make sense for them to just do the first movie right in the first season however now that the groundwork has been layed they could do it in a second or perhaps even third season as anything beyond that would be pushing the concept of the show a bit to far.
Whilst there are alot of things that do work in this show there are somethings that don't work in this show. Like for example the whole chemical plot that was just something that wasn't needed in the show as it doesn't add anything to Pam as a character nor does it add to her plot of trying to find Jason rather it's just there for the sake of being there which is a shame as te idea of introducing Jason's father Elias Voorhees is a good idea as it's a character that has quite literally never been seen in any of the films and therefor the makers of his show could have done anything that they wanted with him and as long as they kept him as Jason's dad it would have worked but they give him such a dull and boring plot to be in that it oddly feels like a huge disservice to the character. Another thing that really doesn't work for the show is the fact that the hippie characters and there plot is just pointless in the grand scheme of things as you could have had any group of characters play the role that those characters ended up playing and nothing would change as that's how little thought went into them heck once Harmony escapes Pam's rampage at the start of the episode 6 that character is never seen again in the rest of the show with her only being mentioned once very briefly by Enos in episode eight which begs the question of why have her character be the one to escape if your not going to do anything with her as you could have had her play a part of the third act of episode eight by haviug her trying to kill Pam only to end up getting killed by Jason which yes granted isn't much but it's still alot more better then forgetting the character even existed in the first place.
For a long time there has been a huge issue with the Friday The 13th timeline that being in Part 1 we see Jason as a kid at the end of the film and yet in Part II and every film after we see him as a full grown adult. This show actually explains how he was able to grow so tall in such a short amount of time as it turns out the chemical company that his dad working for was conducting experiments on Jason to make him super strong with this having the effect of giving him the skill to grow taller in such a short amount of time whilst still acting very much like a child altho this is something that does come at a cost as it does cost him his memories of his loved ones hence why he kills his father without a second thought and why he was close to killing Pam. This was quite frankly such a good idea as it does explain a huge plot hole that the films have had for literally decades now and it does it in a way that's inservice to the show as it explains why the people of Crystal Lake never found the body of a boy as by that point her would have started to grow his body into that of say a teenager or a pre-teen and while this is something that will get some fans of the franchise angry it is something that does work in the context of the show and given the fact that the movies never bothered to explain this change in height or appearance it did mean that the makers of this show could have done whatever they wanted to explain it and thankfully they went with the option that made the most sense whilst the stuff with the chemical company could have been left out of the show the stuff in episode seven which does give a very highly detailed backstory for Jason is something and whilst it wasn't perfect as we didn't need to know alot of things in that episode it is still something that works as an episode of this show.
Now then these episodes has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly forty nine minuets and twenty second. Much like with the first four episodes each episode of these episodes as a running time between forty three minuets and fifty two minuets with the final episode of the show being a shockingly short forty three minuets and and thirties seven seconds with each episodes running time clearly being dictated by the plot which is a good as even tho episode 8 would have benefitted from having the longer running time due to the fact that it does have the more stories to wrap up it would have felt like the the episode would have being stretched thin tho if it did have that longer running time with the show having more then enough plot there to cover those amounts of running time in the first place. With the show not really using it's eight episode running time all that wisely due to the fact the show doesn't take the time to fully develop its plot all that well as there is alot of filler plot in this show and while the show didn't need to be eight episodes as you very easily could have done this show in a breezy five episodes having those extra three episodes does allow us more time in this shows world with the makers of this show putting more thought and effort into Jason's backstory then they did into giving the plot some actual plot development. This is something that does also effect the shows character development as while you could argue that Pam not getting any character development is due to her going more and more insane the more the show goes on which is something that does make sense the same thing is also true for the rest of the episodes characters infact Claudette regresses as a character as in one episode she becomes a born again Christian and renounces getting with Barry until marriage only for her in the very next episode renounce being a Christian just to get with Barry with this being due to the fact that they had to redo the opening of the first Friday The 13th film and that's really it with the makers of this show putting more thought and effort into how Bag Head Jason looks then they did into giving the characters some character development but i really will admit that this show really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this a slasher show that actually mean that I have to actually talk about the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual kills that are actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. With the shows more over the top and gory kills being some of the better aspects of the shows more weaker episodes with there being at he very least one kill in every single episode with this being something that didn't really need to be in the sow and its something that does prove that the makers of this show really did know that in order to do a slasher show and do it well you do need to have at the very least one or two kills in the show. With the best kill in the whole entire show not really being one kill as it's the sequence where Pam does kill of alot of the hippie characters as we do get to see alot of fun and creative kills like for example one of them gets what might have been a knife threw his camera lens which was a fun kill to see with alot of them just getting stabbed a bunch of times by Pam with the thing that makes this set of kills truly stand out being the fact that it's important to the lore of the franchise moving forward as this is where Pam gets her hatred of any and all of the camp counselors that work there be it permanently or in the case of the hippies on a temporary bases which is something that is key to the films as the Pam that we see in the first Friday The 13th film kills everyone that works at the camp regardless of if there a camp counselor or not and heck an unseen Jason even gets to kill one of them of as one of the hippie's attacks Grace and Jason defending her kills him with there being some really good make up effect on all of the shows kills with the rest of the shows kills being just as good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall if you haven't done so yet go and watch this show as it is so good regardless of if your into really gory kills or not there is something in here for you as the show does have alot of really good acting and writing in it all of which make this show be alot more better then what it really had any right to be in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now the i've talked about all of the good and a swell as all of the bad things that are in this very show in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very show really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in tis very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Tenor , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very show that I used in this very post being the really great Google Images really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very show with alot of them really being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Google Images really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition as well and so then horror fans we end this review as we always do with really our one and true goddess Elvira wishing us all some really very unpleasant dreams.
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