Interview: Linda Cardellini and Brad Caleb Kane Bring Pamela Voorhees Back in ‘Crystal Lake’

Interview
Tom Atkinson
October 15, 2026
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2
5 minutes read

Unbelievably, It has been more than four decades since Pamela Voorhees first unleashed her murderous fury on the unsuspecting counsellors of Camp Crystal Lake, but horror’s most notorious mother is finally getting to share her own story. With Crystal Lake, the eagerly anticipated Friday the 13th prequel series, Linda Cardellini steps into one of the genre’s most recognisable roles, while creator and showrunner Brad Caleb Kane attempts to breathe new life into a franchise that has been terrifying audiences since 1980.

Love Horror caught up with Cardellini and Kane to discuss the new series, the challenges of revisiting such an iconic horror property and the unexpected pleasures of returning to Camp Crystal Lake. Rather appropriately, our interview took place on 13 October, although thankfully neither guest reported any machete-wielding maniacs lurking nearby.

Produced by A24 for Peacock, Crystal Lake explores the events preceding Sean S. Cunningham’s original film, placing Pamela Voorhees at the centre of a story that promises to reveal considerably more about the woman whose actions would help establish one of horror cinema’s most enduring franchises.

For Cardellini, whose varied career includes Freaks and Geeks, Dead to Me and the Scooby-Doo films, taking on Pamela represented something genuinely different.

“The physicality, the blood, the violence, the rage, like all of those things were sort of. I had not touched on them like that before,” she explained.

The actress also discusses the surprising amount of work involved in recreating Pamela’s famous knitwear, revealing that the costume was handmade following numerous fittings to achieve something recognisably familiar without simply duplicating Betsy Palmer’s original look.

Kane, meanwhile, approaches the franchise as a lifelong admirer of its particular brand of cinematic mayhem. For him, returning to the world of Friday the 13th offered both the freedom to explore previously untold stories and the responsibility of satisfying an audience with very specific expectations.

“You have to make sure that if you’re doing any Friday the 13th project, you know, you lead with Creative Kills,” he explained, before discussing how television offers an opportunity to explore the characters and psychology behind the bloodshed.

That combination of familiar slasher thrills and deeper emotional storytelling is central to Crystal Lake, with the series promising to give audiences a different perspective on Pamela while retaining the grisly entertainment that made the original films so popular.

Our conversation also ventures into Kane’s childhood memories of watching horror films, the nostalgic atmosphere of the production and the pair’s personal favourites from the Friday the 13th franchise. And yes, we made them choose something other than the original!

Watch our full interview with Linda Cardellini and Brad Caleb Kane below, as they discuss bringing Pamela Voorhees back to the screen, honouring the legacy of Friday the 13th and what fans can expect from this bloody new chapter.