Crystal Lake FX: The Killing Of Ed Shobani

 In Crystal Lake Season 1 Episode 1: Camp Crystal, Pamela is visited by two people (Ed Shobani and Benny) who have tracked her down to her house, posing as police, and attempt to sedate and kidnap her. Unfortunately for these fellows, the attempted kidnapping does no go well as Pamela takes care of things the only way she knows how, Kill!

Actor Aaron Serotsky portrays Ed Shobani and had some extensive make-up appliances added by Presto FX for the epic machete slicing of his face. It's a gnarly sequence that had the actor spending hours in a chair while being transformed into the gruesome results of Pamela's rage.

Besides Aaron's transformation, there were a number of Ed Shobani prop heads created in order to allow the proper machete blow to the character's head. As effects master Dave Presto mentioned in a recent behind the scenes video, with the blow to the prop head, "...there is a stop. You can't get that with something that is not here. If everything was CG, the timing is off, the lighting is off."

The prop heads were also designed to have the machete blade be pulled out by cutting a small portion of the blade out and then placed into the prop head where a place was created for it to be affixed to. This made it easier for the blade to be pulled out and then blood to poor onto the floor.

The other part of this death scene is when the Ed character has a bag placed over his head to keep the blood from continuing to spill onto the floor. The character with a reflex action pops up from the floor and goes towards Pamela. They struggle, and then Ed ends up on top of Pamela when the bag bursts and his blood explodes onto Pamela. 

For this sequence, a stuntman had where a breathing tube in the bag while it was filled with blood and then be directed to where he needed to walk and ultimately have the blood burst out of the bag.

The overall death sequence of Ed Shobani is tone setter and one that will be remembered for a long time!

The full eight-episode season of Crystal Lake is now available to stream on most platforms, including Peacock (U.S.); also, on Sky Atlantic/NOW in the UK/Ireland, HBO Max across Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and Crave in Canada.

Crystal Lake stars Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, with Callum Vinson as young Jason Voorhees, plus William Catlett, Devin Kessler, Cameron Scoggins, Gwendolyn Sundstrom, and others (including Nick Cordileone as Crazy Ralph). 

Brad Caleb Kane is executive producing Crystal Lake together with A24 and an executive producing team that includes Marc Toberoff and Victor Miller (Friday 13th LLC), Robert M. Barsamian and Robert P. Barsamian (Horror Inc.), Stuart Manashil, Tyson Bidner, Michael Lennox and Roy Lee