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Crystal Lake is a fictional small town in New Jersey featured in the Friday the 13th film series.
Geography, Government, and History
It is located in the Packanack Lake Region;[1] local bodies of water include Crystal Lake and a river linking the lake to a navigable harbor on the Atlantic seaboard,[2] and nearby Tomahawk Lake.[3] Crystal Lake itself is said to stretch from Higgins Haven in the north to Crystal Point in the southwest, with the river on the east side; the perimeter of the lake stretches for miles.[4]
In-town dining options include Joey B.'s, a popular hangout. In addition to apartments and houses in town,[1][5] locals also reside in countryside cabins[6] and lake-shore houses,[7][8] the latter of which are relatively close to camp grounds like Camp Crystal Lake[3] and Packanack Lodge.[1] The local high school is Lakeview High School.[2]
The town government is led by a mayor[9] and there is both a sheriff's department[9][10][5] and a police department.[6][10] Mayors are known to have included Cobb; known sheriffs are Cal Tucker, Michael Garris, and Edward Landis -- the latter two were both killed in the line of duty -- and police chiefs are known to have included Scott Fitzsimmons. Medical care is available through the Wessex County Medical Center, where the coroner's office maintains a morgue;[7] Eternal Peace Cemetery provides a resting place for local decedents.
The presence of the sheriff's department headquarters in Crystal Lake suggests that it is the county seat of Wessex County; the sheriff's authority is known to extend beyond Crystal Lake proper to include outlying locations like Pinehurst Youth Development Center and the diner where Lana Ardsley worked,[9] as well as a police station in Carpenter.[10][11]
The town of Crystal Lake was founded by Lars Krueger in 1666, and according to local historian Vic Cunningham, of the Crystal Lake Historical Society, for almost 100 years it was famous for its All Hallow's Eve Festival, shared with townspeople from neighboring Haddonfield (Camden County).[12] Other towns and communities near Crystal Lake include Stanhope (Sussex County),[3] Hope (Warren County),[3] Blairstown (Warren County),[3] Stockton (Hunterdon County),[8] Sebastopol,[1] Green Valley,[6] and Carpenter.[10]
In the late 1980s, the name of Crystal Lake town, the lake itself, and Wessex County were all changed to Forest Green to dissociate them from the murder sprees of the so-called "Crystal Lake Killers," Pamela Voorhees and her son Jason Voorhees.[10] By the late 1990s, the town and lake had returned to the name Crystal Lake,[8] out of a cynical desire to capitalize on the Voorhees' notoriety.[13] By the 2000s, Forest Green County had been renamed Cunningham County.[5]
The Crystal Lake murders
Crystal Lake has a very uncomfortable history of violent death:
- There were two unsolved murders at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958.[3]
- A killing spree in 1979 left seven dead at Camp Crystal Lake before the culprit, Pamela Voorhees, was herself killed.[3]
- Two months later, the sole survivor of that spree vanished, suspected victim of foul play.[1]
- Five years later, 1984 saw the worst killing spree yet, in which no fewer than thirty-five people were killed over the course of one week, culminating in the violent death of the spree murderer.[1][6][7][14]
- The year 1990 saw yet another terrible killing spree, which left another eighteen people dead in Forest Green.[10][15]
- Fifteen more people were brutally slain in two lake shore cabins a few years later.[8]
- In 2000, nearly the entire graduating senior class of Lakeview High was lost at sea on board SS Lazarus for their senior trip to New York City, along with the entire ship's company; two Lakeview faculty members and a student were found dead in New York City.[2][16]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Friday the 13th Part 2
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Friday the 13th
- ↑ Freddy vs. Jason, p. 23.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Friday the 13th Part III
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
- ↑ The Friday the 13th Part III novelization states that the Crystal Lake area is instead located in Pinehurst County.
- ↑ Friday the 13th: The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited
- ↑ Freddy vs. Jason, p. 225.
- ↑ The news report heard in Friday the 13th Part III mentions the discovery of eight bodies, but this count cannot include Alice Hardy, Deputy Winslow, or Terry McCarthy, whose bodies were hidden in Jason's shack. The additional, otherwise unknown victims may include the source of the eyeball found by Abel.
- ↑ The Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives novelization states that 12-year-old Tommy Jarvis "spent the next ten years locked up in various institutions" (presumably including his time at Pinehurst) after killing Jason Voorhees in 1984.
- ↑ Jim Miller claims in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan that Jason Voorhees "drowned in Crystal Lake about thirty years ago," which would put the Lazarus incident in 1987; assuming that he misspoke and meant "forty years" would allow time for the events at Pinehurst, Camp Forest Green, and the lake houses.