Back in the day, tie-in novelizations of movies were a given. Like the movie, read the book, or vice versa. But over the years, those types of novels aren’t nearly as big as they used to be. However, they’ve been making a comeback for certain movies… and even TV shows. A24 will be publishing an official novelization of Crystal Lake, the upcoming Friday the 13th prequel series.
Crystal Lake Novelization
The Crystal Lake novel was written by Tim Waggoner, who has extensive experience with tie-in novelizations and A24, having penned the X Trilogy novelizations. Crystal Lake showrunner Brad Caleb Kane has long been a fan of movie novelizations, going all the way back to reading the E.T. novel by William Kotzwinkle as a kid, so he knew he wanted one for his show as well.
“Cracking the paperback and reading E.T.’s very own thoughts made text, I knew just what adventure I’d be choosing that day,” Kane said in a statement. “Here was all the alien inner life I’d been craving, and whether Mr. Spielberg liked it or not, it allowed me to experience the film again on, what was to me, an even deeper, richer, and more meaningful level. It was supplementary and complementary. I can still watch E.T. without thinking of the pudgy little guy’s running commentary from the book, but I can also toggle back and forth between them in my mind like telepathic subtitles.“
He continued, “After that, I noticed novelizations of my favorite films everywhere, and I bought them all. I loved how the thoughts of the characters were extrapolated and expanded upon, how new scenes were written beyond what was shown on screen. I would rewatch these movies I loved with friends, but only I knew what the characters were really thinking and what their lives had been like before the events of the story.“
“So when I made Crystal Lake and A24 asked me if I wanted to do a novelization for the series, it was a no-brainer,” he said. “A true full-circle moment. And having read Tim Waggoner’s novelizations of the X Trilogy, I knew he could translate Pam Voorhees’ chaotic thoughts and complex psychology in new, intriguing ways, ones that might be more clarifying and revealing than we could ever communicate on screen. And boy, has he ever.“
Much like Kane, I have fond memories of movie novelizations. I remember reading Alan Dean Foster’s Alien years before I ever got around to watching the movie. Or, more accurately, before my parents let me watch it. Apparently, reading about gruesome space murders was okay.
The Crystal Lake novelization will be released on October 15, which just so happens to be when the show premieres on Peacock.
What We Thought of the TV Series
Crystal Lake stars Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, the mother of Jason. Our own Chris Bumbray caught the first two episodes at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year. Although he was impressed by Cardellini, he wasn’t certain whether the story was going to work as a TV series.
“Through it all, Cardellini is excellent, with her performance so good that she keeps the show working, even when—at times in the first episode—you wonder if this is actually going to work as an ongoing series,” he wrote. “The stuff focusing on Pamela is good, but I was less enamored with the more Friday the 13th-like moments focusing on horny camp counselors up to no good. Will the franchise work on the small screen? It’s still too early to tell, with us having only seen two episodes, but there’s enough going on here—particularly in episode two—that I want to keep watching.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
Source: JoBlo
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