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

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Autuer horror filmmaker Robert Eggers takes audiences into the very abyss of darkness with his long-awaited passion project, Nosferatu, an adaptation of the seminal 1922 horror film F. W. Murnau Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. The new trailer is utterly chilling to the bone.

Watch the all-new trailer for Nosferatu here:

Here’s the official synopsis:

Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.

Building off of the initial fright that audiences witness in the teaser trailer, this official trailer places audiences inside an 19th century Gothic nightmare as the young and beautiful ingenue Ellen Hutter (Lily Rose-Depp) falls under the guise if a devilish evil.. and all suffer in its wake.

The official trailer pulls audiences deeper into the ambience, texture, and dread that Eggers conjures in Nosferatu, and you feel the pull of a sinister force that will consume everything in its path. Its dark and gothic beats are certain to leave your skin crawling, and it’s clear that Eggers has produced a picture that could again follow in F. W. Murnau’s 1922 original and could very well be one of the defining horror films of a new generation.

Sight unseen un the trailer is Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok. And he is literally evil incarnate. Eggers and his team are saving the reveal of Orlock, and all we get is the shadow and whisper of this character whom Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas Hutter describes as ‘the devil’, and who has an infatuation and lust for his new wife Ellen, that will lead to madness, plague and death. Every step of the way you feel Orlock’s unnatural desire to consume Ellen and all she loves dear, and its these actions that leave audiences with a definite chill running down their spines.

 

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Nosferatu is undoubtedly one of our most anticipated films of the year, and we cannot wait to see the pure horror Eggers unleash when the film arrives in cinemas on January 18, 2025.

Image: Universal Pictures

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Watch the brand new first trailer for Nosferatu below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.

Writer/director Robert Eggers is a true craftsman at heart, and his films impact viewers with their attention to detail, meticulous ambience and thrilling sense of narrative and character. Eggers brings that same sense of gravitas to his new look Nosferatu, which is a new adaptation of the classic horror piece, Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens, by director F. W. Murnau and screenwriter Henrik Galeen, and which now stands as a classic example of German expressionistic cinema. And after 102 years, the horror returns!

This first-look trailer offers audiences an atmospheric and intense piece of filmmaking that will fill them with dread and promise lashings of blood. Eggers has commented that he wants to produce a film that is a straight-up ‘gothic horror’, and this new work looks utterly terrifying in its construction. Nosferatu has long served as Eggers’ passion project, and you can sense that he’s crafting a film where the focus is to scare the living hell out of audiences.

To bring Nosferatu out of the shadows, Eggers has assembled an incredible cast of actors, including Bill Skarsgård, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe, and all of them are at the top of their game with their performances in this picture. Lily-Rose Depp is flawlessly cast as Ellen Hutter, an innocent who falls under the dark spell of a demonic force, and you can feel her sense of fairness intensely in this first footage. Nicholas Hoult’s Thomas Hutter is a man possessed, and you can see his desperate sanity failing as he tries to make sense of the horrors around him. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin make a great pairing of Friedrich and Anna Harding and will add a good dose of vigour to the production. At the same time, Willem Dafoe Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz appears as a dangerous vampire hunting force. You can sense the obsession and, dare I say, a touch of madness as he strives to eradicate the dark force he has encountered.

As yet unseen but already channelling a terrifying presence of pure evil is Bill Skarsgård, who brings to life the iconic presence of Count Orlock, cinema’s original horror monster, and while he’s yet to be clearly seen, his devilish spectre is deeply felt in this trailer. Eggers has heaped significant praise upon Skarsgård’s performance here as Orlock, calling his performance ‘transformative’ and commenting on Skarsgård’s performance, saying, “‘What would a dead Transylvanian nobleman actually look like for real?’ Bill lost a tremendous amount of weight. He’s so transformed in every aspect that I don’t know if people will give him the credit,” said Eggers. “You can see Bill [as Pennywise] in the It make-up; you can’t detect any Bill here. He worked with an opera coach to lower his voice an octave. I think people are going to think we treated it digitally, but that’s his performance.”

This first trailer for Nosferatu is just a tease of the horror that is to come. With its stalking terror, it will surely scare the living hell out of audiences when it arrives in cinemas this Christmas.

Image: Universal Pictures

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Set in the future, the film chronicles the odyssey of 30 young men and women who are sent deep into space on a multi-generational mission in search of a new home. The mission descends into madness, as the crew reverts to its most primal state, not knowing if the real threat they face is what’s outside the ship or who they’re becoming inside it.

Writer-director Neil Burger takes audiences on a dark and foreboding journey into the corners of the human soul in Voyagers, a clever and intense tale of isolation, desperation and madness, and the result is a piece of sci-fi that will have you on edge from beginning to end. Drawing inspiration from the works of Joseph Conrad and William Golding, Burger explores ideas of tribalism, fanaticism and individuality and this pulse-pounding science-fiction story doesn’t stop for an instant. The film’s narrative allows Burger to keep the intensity up at all times and with the stakes as high as they are, i.e. saving the human race aborad one vessel, the idea of what happens when our base animal nature takes over is sure to have you on the edge of your seat.

Led by a terrific young cast including Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp and Fionn Whitehead as Christopher, Sela and Zac, three lifelong friends who in the sudden void of space and the onset of the sudden rush of euphoric urges are thrust into a dangerous position of life and death. While Sheridan showcases a strong stoic authority, it’s Depp and Whitehead who shine out in the film. As the film’s female lead, Sela, Depp brings a keen intelligence and sharp survival instinct as she sees the chaos evolving around her, while Whitehead’s Zac, who finally accepts the chip on his shoulder unleashes a murderous intensity and he makes for a very scary psycho in space.

Burger’s approach to the film’s subject matter and the exploration of the sudden rush of suppressed urges is explored in a very interesting way throughout this film. Set in the fluorescent-lit, sterile environment of the spaceship that Christopher, Sela, Zac and the other colonists call home, the sudden rush of feelings they have never felt before, including joy, aggression, jealously, lust and madness make for a very interesting juxtaposition, and as the film’s narrative moves forward things get crazier and crazier by the moment. Burger uses Voyagers to explore the idea of humanity at both its best and worst, and it’s a rollercoaster ride from beginning to end.

For those seeking a film that will take them all the way from A to Z in a single sitting, Voyagers is the movie you’ll want to check out. This is an intense science-fiction thriller, grounded with terrific performances from a talented young cast, and it definitely makes you sit up in your seat.

Image: Universal Pictures

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