Jason, Carrie, and Derry… Oh My!

By: R.A. Rayne

We all love prequels, sequels, remakes, and TV adaptations. Whether done well or poorly, they take us back to our favorite places and expand the worlds we love. With the rise of streaming, franchises like Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, and DC have expanded their universes, and horror franchises are now joining the fray.

While sequels, remakes, and TV adaptations aren’t new to the horror genre, what is new, or at least feels new, is expanding these franchises into a larger universe. AND YES… before you say it… I realize Stephen King has been doing this all along, and Jason versus Freddy exists. So, this idea isn’t “new”. It’s… reimagined, or at least more interesting.

Last year, Brad Valeb Kane and Jason Fuchs took us back to Derry. Set in the IT universe, 27 years before Georgie follows a psycho-killing clown into a storm drain, It: Welcome to Derry begins when a young boy named Maddie vanishes after a frightening encounter with a strange family and something unnatural in the sewers. People soon realize his disappearance is not an isolated case. The town’s pipes start whispering, and strange visions appear in places like homes and the Capitol Theater.

Like the original, only a group of “losers” notice these strange events. Lily Bainbridge, Will Hanlon, Phil, Teddy Uris, and Ronnie begin investigating as they realize they are all experiencing the same things.

Meanwhile, a Cold War plan unfolds. General Francis Shaw brings Major Leroy Hanlon from the U.S. Air Force and psychic Dick Hallorann to the local military base. The government has sensed something psychic beneath Derry and hopes to find it and use it as a weapon against the Soviets.

The show also reveals how Pennywise began. Before becoming a monster, Bob Gray was a real circus clown who performed in Derry in 1908. He was a kind but sad performer loved by children until IT lured him into the woods, killed him, and stole his face and act to attract more children.

Everything leads to the Black Spot, a Black-owned nightclub and one of the few safe places in segregated Derry. When a vigilante mob burns it down out of racial hatred, the fear and pain from the attack are enough to fully awaken IT and let it feed. In the finale, “Winter Fire,” Hallorann and the kids use an old ritual object to put Pennywise back to sleep… for now.

One of the “charms” of IT: Welcome to Derry is its connection to King’s larger Dark Tower universe. In the first episode, a character named Lily receives a turtle charm from her missing classmate, Matty, which serves as a protective token during a terrifying encounter with Pennywise. The charm is Maturin the Turtle, one of the 12 Guardians of the Beam and Pennywise’s arch-nemesis in Stephen King’s multiverse.

Along with Maturin the Turtle, Welcome to Derry includes several other links to the “Stephen King Universe.”

One of the best things about the series is that Derry feels like part of Stephen King’s bigger Maine. Instead of just adding hidden references, the show weaves them into the story.

The biggest connection is Dick Hallorann. The series brings the psychic chef from The Shining and Doctor Sleep into 1962 Derry as a main character, and it fits perfectly. It’s not just Hallorann himself; if you look closely, you’ll see a can of Calumet Baking Powder, the same item from the Overlook Hotel pantry. This small detail suggests that Hallorann’s future is already decided.

The scary places from King’s stories appear here too. Juniper Hill Asylum, the famous mental hospital from Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, and IT Chapter Two, is shown completely. It’s where Derry sends people who know too much. The series also talks about Shawshank Prison and Project Arrowhead, the military experiment from The Mist. These references show that the government’s interest in Derry fits into a larger pattern of handling forces it can’t understand.

The Black Spot is at the center of the season. For book readers, it’s an important part of Derry’s history. In King’s original novel, it was a nightclub for Black U.S. Air Force servicemen that racist locals burned down. The show finally brings that history to the screen and makes it the emotional peak of the season, showing how human cruelty is what feeds IT in the first place.

To set the story in 1962, the show brings back King’s well-known Derry landmarks. The Derry Standpipe towers over the town, the creepy Paul Bunyan statue stands at the edge, and the Capitol Theater is where the kids’ visions converge. Together, these details make 1962 Derry feel real, connected, and clearly part of King’s world.

While IT: Welcome to Derry was well received overall, Kane and Fuchs’ next project drew mixed reactions. The Friday the 13th prequel, Crystal Lake, took us back to “Camp Blood,” before Jason Voorhees became the machete-wielding, unstoppable, hockey-masked killer we all love to fear. Friday the 13th fans were split between appreciating Linda Cardellini’s performance as Pam Voorhees (Jason’s mom) and being frustrated by lore changes.

The biggest changes creators Kane and Fuchs made in Peacock series Crystal Lake are to Jason’s origin and physical condition.

In the original films, Jason was born with his disabilities. In this new version, his condition comes from Project Argonaut, a secret Cold War project run by Bellflower Chemical Laboratories and led by his father, Elias Wittering. The Bellflower project tried to create people who could survive atomic blasts using chemicals and radiation. Pamela Voorhees was unknowingly part of the experiments while pregnant. Because of this, Jason grew fast, healed fast, and had physical deformities.

In Kane’s series, Jason doesn’t drown. In the original story, he did drown at age 11. In Crystal Lake, he survives the lake incident because of Project Argonaut. Through the series, we find out that the experiments and trauma Jason experiences at Bellflower Chemical make him immortal, and the more trauma he experiences, the stronger he gets. It even accelerates his growth.

The Peacock series also changes Pamela Voorhees. In the original, she is a grief-stricken mother who loses her mind over the death of her son and goes on a murderous rampage after the camp counselors failed to save her son from drowning because they were too busy “getting it on.” While the series kept this premise, Pam’s murderous tendencies stem more from the mood-stabilizing and psychiatric medication she was given at Bellflower. After Pamela falls asleep and Jason “drowns for the first time,” her husband, Elias, under the guise of prenatal care and postpartum management, gives her the experimental drug. The show implies that these drugs permanently alter her moods and feed into her escalating volatility and rage if she were to stop taking them… which she did.

Finally, Crystal Lake also introduces Grace, a young girl whose abusive mother is killed by Pamela, who takes her in as a stand-in daughter. After a series of events with a group of “hippies,” and three hits of acid (LSD), Grace kills the two camp counselors who were responsible for Jason drowning in the lake. Ever the surrogate mother, Pamela covers up Grace’s actions and murders the rest of the “hippies” group. While this slightly changes the original Friday the 13th backstory of Pamela killing the counselors, “from a certain point of view,” she is still involved with their deaths.

Despite the changes to the story, the introduction of Bellflower Industries, and the explanation of Jason’s “immortality” feeling like Stranger Things, Crystal Lake still feels like its 1980s counterpart, just with more gore.

And there was Carrie.Since 1976, Stephen King’s 1974 best-selling novel Carrie has had 3 film and television adaptations, 1 sequel, and now 1 series. If you have been hiding under your bed in Castle Rock and don’t know what Carrie is, I can’t help you, but you must have heard of the “Bloody Prom?” It’s been parodied everywhere, from South Park to Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour Prom concert film. The scene of Carrie as the bloody prom queen has been parodied more times than Google can count, but that didn’t stop Mike Flanagan from doing it again for Prime Video.

Mike Flanagan is like the Dave Filoni of the Stephen King Universe. Just as Filoni seems to understand Star Wars almost as well as George Lucas, Flanagan knows how to bring Stephen King’s novels to life. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, which feels fitting, and discovered Stephen King in the 5th grade after reading IT. Since then, he has adapted several of King’s works, including the 2017 psychological horror film Gerald’s Game on Netflix, 2019’s Doctor Sleep (the sequel to The Shining), King’s novella The Life of Chuck coming in 2025, and now the Carrie series for Amazon Prime Video. Flanagan also has a multi-season television adaptation of The Dark Tower and a feature film adaptation of The Mist in development.

This new version of Carrie keeps Stephen King’s original story but updates the theme of isolation for today. Carrie White, played by Summer H. Howell, has grown up in strict religious seclusion with her overprotective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). She has never gone to school, made friends, or had any freedom beyond her mother’s rules.

After her father dies in a construction accident, Carrie’s life is turned upside down. As her family struggles, social services steps in and sends her to public high school for the first time. She isn’t ready for it. Rather than the typical locker-room bullying, the series updates the story. Carrie faces online cruelty when Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton) pulls a harsh stunt designed to go viral. Now, instead of just hallway whispers, everyone records it, posts it, and shares it.

As Carrie faces growing up and public humiliation, her hidden telekinetic powers start to show. At first, they’re weak and hard to control, but as the bullying gets worse, her powers become stronger. Everything leads up to prom night. A humiliating prank with red paint causes a psychic break that destroys the school. The biggest change from the novel is the ending. In King’s original, Carrie doesn’t survive. In this version, she survives the chaos. After everything is destroyed, she leaves town with Emaline West, who can project her spirit and is part of a mysterious psychic group led by Adelaide. Together, they leave Chamberlain to find freedom.

It might seem like the modern touches make this version of Carrie different or less true to the original, but it actually feels closer to King’s novel. The storytelling tools are updated, yet the mood and themes remain just as King wrote them. His look at the harm caused by social isolation, the cruelty of bullying, and the risks of religious fanaticism still “sounds familiar.” These problems are just as bad, if not worse, than they were in 1974. Now, though, people can hide behind their screens and political views.

Flanagan’s adaptation of Carrie not only captures the essence of Stephen King’s novel but also brings back Carrie’s father. In all previous screen adaptations, Ralph White never appeared. He was either already dead or had run off. Flanagan brought Ralph White back from the novel. While the construction worker and religious fundamentalist dies early in the series, his “spirit remains.” Flanagan also brought back the journalistic narrative the book so eloquently incorporated. Flanagan used a documentary-style narrative that paid off in the series finale, expanding the series into a Carrie-verse and possibly the larger Stephen King Universe. With the inclusion and mention of others having “the shine,” hints toward The Shop (the shadowy government agency famous from Firestarter and other King stories), a reference to the haunted car from Christine, and mentions of companies like LaMerk Industries and Sombra Corporation, it’s possible that Carrie season 2 will take us to Castle Rock or Derry, or possibly closer to the Dark Tower itself.

With series like Welcome to Derry, Crystal Lake, and Carrie show that the horror genre is in good hands. These projects make me excited for the next wave of slasher reboots, remakes, and series that include A24’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Series from Glen Powell and JT Mollner, Peacock’s adaptation of Eli Roth’s torture-slasher franchise Hostel starring Paul Giamatti, and a Miramax Halloween cross-shared universe.