{"id":760165,"date":"2026-06-25T21:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760165\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T21:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:29:09","slug":"heres-your-gloomy-first-look-at-werwulf-robert-eggers-next-horror-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/760165\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s Your Gloomy First Look at ‘Werwulf,’ Robert Eggers’ Next Horror Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Eggers left a gift-wrapped vampire<\/a> under the Christmas tree in 2024. This year, the Nosferatu director\u2014who\u2019s as renowned for his attention to period detail<\/a> as he is for his devotion to the macabre\u2014has another frightfully festive treat in store: Werwulf<\/a>, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, seen here with some furry friends in this first-look image.<\/p>\n

Eggers regulars Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp co-star, and all Focus Features will say about the movie so far is that it\u2019s \u201cRobert Eggers\u2019 most visceral and haunting experience yet\u201d and is \u201ca harrowing tale of devotion, damnation, and the devil within.\u201d Nowhere in that description is the word \u201cwerewolf,\u201d but that title more or less spells it out.<\/p>\n

In his first Werwulf-adjacent interview, conducted by Esquire<\/a>, Eggers confirmed what kind of monster we\u2019ll be seeing in the film. And, in keeping with his obsession with history, he found a way into the 700-year-old tale through real-world means.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned that basically because of protections for the wool trade, there was a big effort to get rid of all the wolves in England. It was pretty successful,\u201d he told Esquire. \u201cSo the movie takes place around 1300, and that\u2019s as late as it could be because once there were no wolves in England, there was no more werewolf lore in England. That became interesting, that it was going to be set so medieval.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said, unsurprisingly, that Werwulf will offer its own take on werewolf lore, much in the same way Nosferatu and The Witch offered their own perspectives on well-worn horror tropes. \u201cThe cool thing about going back into the past is that you can kind of hit a reset button,\u201d he said. \u201cSo all the clich\u00e9s of being bitten by a werewolf and silver bullets and a lot of the stuff that has become almost campy doesn\u2019t exist in the mythology of this movie. So you don\u2019t need to have seen Lon Cheney Jr.\u2019s The Wolf Man\u00a0or\u00a0An American Werewolf in London to get what\u2019s going on here.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the characters, Dafoe plays a hunter; Depp plays a farmer\u2019s wife, and Taylor-Johnson plays the farmer. But also, the latter is \u201ca man who is cursed. It\u2019s a story about a man who is cursed and is trying to find salvation through love. He\u2019s a character who is haunted and in great pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Werwulf hits theaters December 25. There\u2019s a full moon on December 24, just so you know.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Eggers left a gift-wrapped vampire under the Christmas tree in 2024. This year, the Nosferatu director\u2014who\u2019s as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48315,64,63,134,344,214660,296973],"class_list":["post-760165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-aaron-taylor-johnson","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-robert-eggers","tag-werwulf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}