After the success of Nosferatu, Robert Eggers is ready to return to the cinema with a new, highly anticipated gothic nightmare. Today, the first official trailer for Werwulf, a medieval horror film written by the director along with Sjón and starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who was also among the protagonists of the filmmaker’s previous film, has been released.
Set in 13th century England, the film tells the story of a small village terrorized by a mysterious creature that roams the fog-covered countryside. What initially seems like an external threat turns out to be linked to the character played by Taylor-Johnson, destined to transform into the werewolf at the center of the story.
The trailer is permeated by a dark and oppressive atmosphere, built with desaturated colors, black and white images, dark rituals, and sudden bursts of violence. The first sequences suggest that the protagonist’s curse may have distant roots: as a child, in fact, the man would have taken part in an ancient rite, perhaps the origin of his monstrous transformation.
Years later, we find him as an adult, with a wife and three children, entering a community already shaken by fear. The threat that haunts the village seems invisible, but the trailer suggests that the true horror might be hiding within him. The images also hint at a particularly intense physical transformation, designed to bring the myth of the werewolf back to a more brutal, dirty, and unsettling dimension.
Alongside Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the cast of Werwulf includes Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Ralph Ineson, faces already associated with Eggers’ cinema. The film also marks a new collaboration between the director and Sjón after The Northman, confirming the filmmaker’s interest in stories suspended between folklore, superstition, and primordial horror.
The project comes after the great success of Nosferatu, the remake of the classic horror film that won over critics and audiences and surpassed 181 million dollars at the global box office. With Werwulf, Eggers instead returns to an original work, the first since The Lighthouse, after two films based on pre-existing materials.
From the first trailer, the film seems to want to avoid the more spectacular approach typical of werewolf cinema, preferring a more disturbing dimension rooted in the historical context. The true center of the story will not only be the creature but also the suffering of the man who is its victim, the fate of his family, and the terror of a community ready to turn fear into a hunt.
Werwulf will arrive in American theaters on December 25, 2026.
