"Kill them, Mommy": Crystal Lake star Linda Cardellini gets candid about famous Friday the 13th's "ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma" whisper

Crystal Lake, which serves as a prequel to Friday the 13th (1980), is going to premiere on Peacock on October 15, 2026. The show will depict Jason Voorhees (played by Callum Vinson) drowning and his mother, Pamela Voorhees, beginning her revenge plan.

Linda Cardellini, who plays Pamela Voorhees in Crystal Lake, has confirmed that audiences will hear the famous "ch-ch-ch, ha-ha-ha" whisper and talked about how it was originally "ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma", based on Pamela telling herself what she believes her son wants to say.

Crystal Lake star Linda Cardellini speaks about the true meaning of Pamela's whisper

In Friday the 13th, Pamela Voorhees talks to herself in a dual voice, imitating her son Jason, saying a particular phrase to justify murdering the camp counselors. She believes that earlier camp counselors, Barry Jackson and Claudette Hayes, were responsible for Jason's death, as they were busy having sex while Jason was being bullied and drowned.

The phrase she said to herself as she killed the counselors in Friday the 13th was:

"Kill her, Mommy! Kill her!"

However, that phrase, when heard in the film after being edited, sounded like:

"ch-ch-ch, ha-ha-ha"

On the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Fallon asked Linda Cardellini:

"In Crystal Lake, do you hear the "ch-ch-ch, ha-ha-ha"?"

Cardellini confirmed that audiences will hear the famous whisper in the prequel series as well. She then talked about it, saying:

"I don't know if you guys are not a Friday the 13th person, every time Jason is stalking a person, or even in the first movie, where the mother is the original killer, you hear that when somebody's about to get it."

Fallon then said that he heard a rumor that the whisper was originally the phrase:

"Kill, kill, kill, Ma, Ma, Ma."

Cardellini confirmed the rumor, saying:

"Yes. "Kill them, Mommy. Kill them." And then Manfredini took the first syllables and then hit them with reverb and made the "ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma." "

Cardellini ended the conversation on the topic by jokingly saying:

"Spoiler alert, I'm the mommy that kills everybody."

Composer Harry Manfredini intentionally made the whisper sound abstract and creepy because the killer didn't appear on screen until the very end of Friday the 13th. He read a draft of the script where Pamela hears her dead son's voice. He then took the 'ki' from 'kill' and the 'ma' from 'mommy' and whispered them into a microphone to represent Jason's spirit urging his mother on to avenge him.

Besides Cardellini and Vinson, the show also stars Devin Kessler as Briana Brooks, William Catlett as Levon Brooks, Cameron Scoggins as Dorf, Nick Cordileone as Ralph, Gwendolyn Sundstrom as Grace, Danielle Kotch as Claudette, Joy Suprano as Rita, and Phoenix Parnevik as Barry.

Crystal Lake is developed and executive produced by Brad Caleb Kane, who also serves as the show's showrunner. Other executive producers of the show are Marc Toberoff, Victor Miller, Robert M. Barsamian, Robert P. Barsamian, Stuart Manashil, Tyson Bidner, Michael Lennox, and Roy Lee. A24 is the production company behind the show.

All episodes of Crystal Lake will be released on Peacock on October 15, 2026.

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