Focus Features has released a new trailer for Werwulf, the next film from writer-director Robert Eggers, offering the most extensive look yet at the medieval horror ahead of its December 25 theatrical opening.
The trailer pushes further into the body horror at the film’s center, following Aaron Taylor-Johnson‘s character as he is transformed from man into something else entirely, rendered in the severe, near monochrome cinematography that has become an Eggers trademark. Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp round out the leads, and all three actors previously worked with Eggers on last year’s Nosferatu, where Taylor-Johnson played Friedrich Harding, Dafoe played Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz, and Depp starred as Ellen Hutter.
Eggers wrote the script with Sjón, his collaborator on The Northman, and Focus Features’ official synopsis stays deliberately vague on plot, describing the film only as “a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation and the devil within.” The studio has otherwise been building interest through an alternate reality game at DevourethAllMankynde.com that reportedly unlocks new material tied to the full moons falling between September and November.
Producers Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Garrett Bird are working alongside Eggers on the project, with Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus among the executive producers, an unusual pairing of horror auteur and family comedy veteran that hasn’t been addressed in the film’s marketing so far.
Coming off The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman and Nosferatu, Eggers has built a reputation as one of horror’s most exacting stylists, and Werwulf arrives as one of the genre’s most anticipated titles of the holiday season. How a werewolf story squares with his usual interest in historical dread and folklore won’t be clear until the film actually opens.
Werwulf opens in theatres on December 25.
