Has the new Peacock TV prequel Crystal Lake sparked your curiosity about the Friday the 13th films? There are so many movies about infamous fictional slasher Jason Voorhees and/or his mother. He’s been killed and resurrected again and again and again with increasingly ridiculous and supernatural obstacles.
If he wasn’t so scary, you might feel sorry for everything he’s been through. To follow along, here’s how to watch the Friday the 13th movies and television shows in order. The franchise has inspired video games and novels as well as films.
Crystal Lake is technically not the first television series. However, I’m not including Friday the 13th: The Series (1987–1990) on this list because it’s not really connected to the movies. There’s nobody named Voorhees.
There’s not even a hockey mask. So let’s stick to the canon, no matter what turns it takes! The original slasher film about a masked man stalking the teenage camp counselors at a formerly abandoned summer camp on Crystal Lake.
Friday the 13th was not only one of the first camp horror movies (camp like sleepaway, not camp like “that’s so camp”) but it also established a lot of the genre tropes that movies like Scary Movie and The Cabin in the Woods spoof. The second movie in the franchise was the first to officially establish Jason Voorhees as the antagonist instead of his mother, Pamela Voorhees, who had more of a role in the first movie. It takes place only a couple of months after the original film and expands the lore of Crystal Lake.
The third film in the franchise was the first to officially introduce Jason’s hockey mask. Isn’t it interesting how this franchise’s iconography rolled out, one by one? Jason also starts this film injured from the events of the previous film.
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