Robert Eggers’ Werwulf trailer channels the distinct, haunting atmosphere of The Witch and Nosferatu. “Do not dread the darkness. Embrace it,” the trailer warns—a line that perfectly sums up Eggers’ knack for pulling audiences into his bleak cinematic worlds.
Writer/director Eggers reunites with his Nosferatu stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe, and Lily-Rose Depp for a new take on the classic monster. “[…] The cool thing about going back into the past is that you can kind of hit a reset button,” explained Eggers in an interview with Esquire. “So all the clichés of being bitten by a werewolf and silver bullets and a lot of the stuff that has become almost campy doesn’t exist in the mythology of this movie. So you don’t need to have seen Lon Cheney Jr.’s The Wolf Man or An American Werewolf in London to get what’s going on here.”
According to Eggers’ Esquire interview, Taylor-Johnson plays a farmer who’s cursed. Depp stars as his wife, and Dafoe is a hunter. And Eggers threw in an interesting tidbit: only a dog in the film has a name.
“Witness Robert Eggers’ most visceral and haunting experience yet,” reads the studio’s synopsis. “Focus Features presents Werwulf, a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation, and the devil within.”
Focus Features has set a December 25, 2026 theatrical release.
Sjón co-wrote the film and produces along with Eggers, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Garrett Bird. Executive producers include Chris Columbus, Eleanor Columbus, and Bernard Bellew.