Robert Eggers’ delivers the darkness with fresh look at ‘Werwulf’
“Do not dread the darkness. Embrace it.”
Whenever we hear the news that Robert Eggers is ready to get back behind the camera, it’s cause for excitement, and after the blood-curdling, gothic glory that was 2024’s Nosferatu, Eggers is ready to return to screens with a project that he has touted as his ‘darkest narrative yet’ in Werwulf…. and its first trailer will chill you to the bone.
Watch the freakishly raw new trailer for Werwulf below:
Drawing on the director’s fascination with monsters, mythology, and folklore, Eggers dials the drama and intensity back to the 13th century, as a vicious monster prowls the desolate and scarred English countryside, and a cursed man must desperately search for a way back to the light.
Conceived with noted poet and writer Sjón, who helped deliver Eggers’ Viking epic The Northman, this first look at Werwulf promises a tale of unnatural terror as pagan rituals smash against the shadow of Christianity in a world of pure instinct and reaction, and this first trailer definitely left us unnerved.
By giving audiences only a taste of what awaits in Werwulf, Eggers delivers an edgy, uncompromising film whose action is intense and whose horror is beastial and terrifying in its impact. Eggers has also been very clear that Werwulf will not follow the standard ‘werewolf-bite-narrative’ which has now become standard and almost cliché, but instead he has described this story as being very much about trying to outrun a curse that one did not naturally invite.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is front and centre as the unnamed protagonist, merely known as The Cursed Farmer, who is desperate for a chance to shed the beast that lives inside him, and he gives a completely animalistic performance as this shaken and broken man. There’s also the presence of Lily-Rose Depp as The Cursed Farmers’ Wife, who understands that there is a force inside her husband that cannot be tamed, and who desperately gives her love to him, while Willem Defoe could very well deliver his most freakish performance to date as The Hunter who wants to rids the lands of this beats no matter the cost, and his presence is utterly devilish in the narrative.
Shaping the script with Early Modern English, which required Eggers and Sjón to work with Oxford Academics, no detail has been left unturned, and the film carries a richness in both texture and feeling that will bring audiences deeper into its horrific experience. The cinematography of Eggers’ collaborator and friend Jarin Blaschke also deserves praise for its orthochromatic look, which incorporates the grain structure of black-and-white film onto colour film, with the film shot on 35mm Film Stock to amplify the vision Eggers seeks to bring to the big screen.
With its monstrous narrative and blood-drenched visuals of pure horror, Werwulf is an experience not for the faint of heart, and best say your prayers, because we’re pretty sure audiences won’t leave this one unscathed, but with its release this Christmas, we could very much see a picture that could reshape the very experience of horror cinema forever.
Image: Universal Pictures
