BWAHAHA! Writer of New Friday the 13th TV Show Compares it to Twin Peaks and True Detective

The last time there was talk of a Friday the 13th series, it was going to be a prequel/origin story, like the Bates Motel TV show. That seemed like a dumb idea – Jason’s origin story was quite adequately explored already, and I don’t need the elementary school adventures of a deformed kid getting bullied for three seasons.

But Legion of Leia’s Jenna Busch got to talk with writer Steven Long Mitchell (The Pretender), and he said this:

He described the feel of the show as a “cross between the first season of True Detective and Twin Peaks on acid.”…”So what ends up happening is, a cop comes into town, looking for his brother. He realizes his brother was there searching into the past murders, and realizes that his personal story is tied into Jason’s personal story. Part of the fun of the show is exploring, is this Jason or is this a copycat? Is it possible that Jason has been around all these years? Is Jason a monster? Is he real? Is he a serial killer? And really exploring who and what Jason is, is part of the whole thrill of the show.”

First of all, Twin Peaks “on acid” might actually bring it closer to normality than it most definitely is not.

Secondly, they’re going the Blair Witch 2 route. Because that worked so well.

“What we’re going to do is basically acknowledge that the people came to this town after these killings happened, and they made all these movies. And now the town has a stigma. Our show is, here’s the true story. Here’s the real story of Jason. It’s been taken and exploited.”

Okay, can we not pretend Friday the 13th has any kind of deep mythology or even a lot of thought behind it as a concept? Hockey-masked zombie Jason has become a horror icon, but the movies themselves are mostly cheap excuses to film kill scenes with a PSA-style moral-lecture subtext, at remote locations with low shooting fees. The big-screen remake understood this, and made the best version of it that could be made on a bigger budget.

If anybody pitches a Freddy Krueger series that’s described as being “like CSI meets Law & Order on steroids,” or something, I’m gonna hurt somebody. Probably myself by punching the wall.