MOVIE NEWS – Robert Eggers’ new gothic horror film has finally revealed itself, and its first official image suggests that Werwulf will be steeped in the director’s unsettling, historically raw sensibility. Aaron Taylor-Johnson stands in a dark forest with a spear and a pack of dogs, while the production has used both its film stock and post-production techniques to make its medieval nightmare look sickly and alien. After Nosferatu, Eggers is turning to werewolf folklore, but the image suggests that this will be anything but a conventional monster movie.
It has been roughly a year and a half since Robert Eggers delivered his beautiful and grotesque new version of Nosferatu, a film that worked not only as a remake but also as another powerful reminder that the filmmaker is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary genre cinema. The vampire movie may have received less attention than many felt it deserved, but Eggers now has a strong opportunity to reach a broader audience with his next gothic horror project. Werwulf was announced in early 2025, and its title leaves little doubt about the creature at the centre of the story: the film takes viewers to 13th-century England and stars Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, with the latter two already having worked with Eggers on Nosferatu.
Werewolf Horror, Eggers Style
Midway through the 2026 film season, the production released its first image, showing Aaron Taylor-Johnson standing in dense woodland with a spear in his hand and dogs around him. Even this single still carries Eggers’ unmistakable visual signature: muted, drained colours, gloomy natural light, oppressive woodland surroundings, and a composition that makes it immediately clear that Werwulf is not planning to follow the familiar path of most werewolf films. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke is once again behind the camera, having worked on every one of Eggers’ released feature films so far, and his contribution was already essential to the strangely familiar yet deeply unsettling atmosphere created by The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman, and Nosferatu.
Werwulf was shot on 35mm film, with orthochromatic processing used in post-production to distort skin tones and make the actors’ faces appear paler, more sickly, and more lifeless. Eggers and Blaschke also found a way to bring the grain structure of black-and-white film into colour photochemical work, potentially allowing the movie to combine the tangible, textured quality of classic horror with the director’s own deliberately alienating historical aesthetic. The method alone suggests that the visuals may be as important to the film’s ability to disturb audiences as the story itself.
Eggers has previously described the screenplay as “the darkest thing I’ve ever written.” He co-wrote the story with Sjón Sigurdsson, who previously worked on Lamb and The Northman. Werwulf is scheduled to open in US cinemas on December 25, 2026, meaning Eggers is once again inviting audiences to spend Christmas willingly stepping into a dark medieval nightmare.
Source: Espinof
