With horror fans preparing to dive into Crystal Lake, there's one thing showrunner Brad Caleb Kane had to get right – the titular camp where the devastation plays out.
Camp Crystal Lake first appeared on our screens in 1980 in the original Friday the 13th, but within the universe, its tragic backstory was set into motion back in 1958, when two camp counsellors were horrifically murdered.
Just a year prior to that, a young boy drowned in the lake when counsellors weren't paying enough attention. His name was Jason Voorhees.
The figure haunted Camp Crystal Lake from that point on, becoming a mythic ghost story told around campers as a warning not to misbehave or wander off – and it remained that way until 1979, when bloody vengeance was unleashed upon the counsellors once again.
Crystal Lake, as a result, has continued to be a consistent presence in the franchise, if only by name. Steeped in legacy, it's a character in and of itself – something showrunner Kane was all too aware of.
Speaking exclusively to Radio Times, here's what Kane had to say about bringing the iconic '70s setting to life, and the real-life places behind the horror.
Blairstown, New Jersey
View Green Video on the source websiteWhile there is actually a real Crystal Lake in Illinois, the original film was not based there. It was actually filmed in Blairstown, a small township in the heart of New Jersey.
To his surprise, when Kane and his team went to check it out while scouting locations, he notes it had "barely changed" decades later, calling it "incredibly frozen in time".
He explained: "All the buildings are still the same. We didn't really have to do much to any digital work to make it look like it looked 45 years ago. There was a little bit of cleanup, maybe a little change on practical changing on signage, but the town looks the same, and we were able to recreate some of those things that people know and love."
"We went back to the OG state. We shot the whole show in New Jersey," he added. "So you get that very Friday the 13th feel.
"The trees, you know, feel a certain way in that part of the country, in that part of the world, in that state, and we really wanted to get that. I wanted vibe over this whole thing," he added.
"I wanted people to feel Friday the 13th before they actually thought about what we were showing them on screen. So I think we achieved that."
The Campsite and Lake
The real name of the campsite used in the original Friday the 13th was Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, which is in Hardwick Township, New Jersey – just 14 miles from Blairstown.
Unfortunately, while they were able to film in the main town, the Camp was not as easy to secure.
"We scouted that camp to film in, but they don't allow filming, so we couldn't actually film at that camp," Kane says. "And it's weird because that lake is so tiny. Like when you see it in person, in the movie it looks so big and vast in the dark when it's hit by moonlight in the light of day.
"It's a really tiny lake, so it was fun to go there and sort of soak in the vibes of that place and that place and see that boathouse, but they wouldn't allow us to film there."
Instead, they filmed at Camp Ocawasin in West Milford, New Jersey, which is around an hour away from the original location.
"The lake is certainly bigger, and we were able to get more of a vastness," he explains.
"We wanted the lake to feel like there’s an inlet where his body could have been swept out, so it would be harder to find him in the shallower ends."
The Boathouse
One of the most iconic moments from the original movie takes place in the Boathouse on the campsite. It's where the sickly sweet Pamela finally reveals her true nature in one last bloody confrontation.
The boathouse existed in Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, making it easy for the small budget movie to film in. However, with no access to Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco in the new series, the team had to recreate it in order to make it accurate.
"Our brilliant production designer Lester Cohen recreated the boathouse from the first movie where Barry and Claudette are killed to the square inch," he said.
"That boathouse still exists exactly at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco."
All episodes of Crystal Lake will be available exclusively in the UK and Ireland on Sky Atlantic and NOW on 19 October.
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