A24's Redesign of All-Time Most Iconic Horror Villain Officially Revealed

In the early days of horror cinema, there were a few standout antagonists who quickly took the spotlight, courtesy of the Universal Monsters. Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man have been revived and reimagined in countless ways over the years, with it sometimes being difficult to separate any derivative version of these archetypes from their original looks. While every filmmaker wants to put their own spin on such characters, if they deviate too far from the source material, they lose what made them special.

It’s not just the early days of horror cinema that created all-time iconic monsters, though, as the ’80s were jam-packed with now-seminal terrors. The character that arguably set the standard for a psychopathic killer is Jason Voorhees. Interestingly enough, he wasn’t even a killer in the original Friday the 13th, and he sported a burlap sack on his head in Friday the 13th Part 2. In Friday the 13th Part III, he finally secured the hockey mask that would be his signature look throughout the rest of the franchise.

A24 and Peacock’s new prequel series Crystal Lake is set to debut this fall, which will showcase how Pamela Voorhees (Linda Cardellini) was driven towards becoming a serial killer who avenged the death of her son. In a new set of posters, we get to see our very first official look at Jason Voorhees in the show, appearing as a much younger boy.

This new look might not offer much insight into the new series, but with it being 17 years since we last got a Friday the 13th, any new look at the character is a welcome one.

Throughout the ’80s, the Friday the 13th franchise dominated cinemas. While other franchises like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street also grew quite popular, Friday the 13th released a shocking eight installments throughout the decade. The legacy of Jason Voorhees was so strong that his notoriety extended well past the horror crowd and he became a pop-culture staple. However, newcomers might not remember the role he actually played in the narrative. (Drew Barrymore’s Casey in Scream famously paid a fatal price for not knowing the franchise’s origins.)

The debut movie focused on a group of counselors trying to reopen the shuttered Camp Crystal Lake, as a young Jason Voorhees drowned in the lake years earlier, while counselors the following year were murdered. In the original movie’s present day, these new counselors get murdered one by one, as it is revealed Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) has been getting revenge on counselors because their neglect for Jason’s safety is why he was swimming unsupervised, ultimately drowning. The second movie revealed Jason to still be alive, though he lived in the woods and was getting revenge for his mother’s death.

After securing his hockey mask in Part III, this would become his signature look. In Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, a copycat killer took the place of Jason, though this decision was met poorly by fans, resulting in Jason’s return in the next installment. With it still being two months before the release of Crystal Lake, we’ve been left to wonder how significant a role the young Jason will have in the series and how his death will ignite Pamela’s revenge.