“Devoureth all mankynde.”
That’s the tagline, and it tells you almost everything about what Robert Eggers is doing here. Focus Features has released the first trailer for Werwulf, and the director’s follow-up to Nosferatu looks less like a monster movie than a fever dream someone had in 1250 and never woke up from.
The official synopsis keeps things deliberately vague: “Witness Robert Eggers’ most visceral and haunting experience yet. Focus Features presents WERWULF, a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation and the devil within.”
The footage fills in the rest. Set in 13th-century England, the film follows a remote community terrorized by something stalking the fog. Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays a character identified only as “Man,” and the trailer suggests his lycanthropy wasn’t an accident so much as an invitation — one extended by an ominous elder in flashback.
Visually, Eggers is once again refusing to make it easy. The trailer is presented in a grainy 4:3 frame, closer to The Lighthouse than to the widescreen sweep of The Northman, and it shifts between black-and-white and color. It is caked in mud, lit by fire, and almost entirely devoid of the sleekness that usually accompanies a studio werewolf picture.
Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp round out the cast, both returning to the Eggers fold after Nosferatu (Dafoe is now on his third and fourth collaborations with the director, counting The Lighthouse). Eggers co-wrote the script with Sjón, the Icelandic poet and novelist who also co-wrote The Northman.
Eggers produces alongside Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Garrett Bird, and Sjón. Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus executive produce with Bernard Bellew — a credit that carries over from Nosferatu, and one that remains one of the more delightful odd couples in modern horror.
The release date is the real statement of intent. Werwulf opens December 25 — the same Christmas Day slot that turned Nosferatu into a genuine phenomenon and proved audiences will absolutely spend the holiday watching something rot on a big screen. Focus is betting the same crowd shows up twice.
Given Eggers’ track record with period authenticity, expect the dialogue to be a challenge by design. This is the filmmaker who had his cast speak Old Norse and 17th-century English; a werewolf story set in the 1200s is not likely to be gentler.
Werwulf is in theaters December 25.
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