Robert Eggers left a gift-wrapped vampire under the Christmas tree in 2024. This year, the Nosferatu director—who’s as renowned for his attention to period detail as he is for his devotion to the macabre—has another frightfully festive treat in store: Werwulf, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, seen here with some furry friends in this first-look image. Eggers regulars Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp co-star, and all Focus Features will say about the movie so far is that it’s “Robert Eggers’ most visceral and haunting experience yet” and is “a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation, and the devil within.” Nowhere in that description is the word “werewolf,” but that title more or less spells it out. In his first Werwulf-adjacent interview, conducted by Esquire, Eggers confirmed what kind of monster we’ll 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.
“I 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,” he told Esquire. “So the movie takes place around 1300, and that’s 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.”
