‘Werwulf’ New Trailer Is a Medieval Nightmare Soaked in Mud and Misery

Focus Features is wasting no time getting us ready for a very different kind of Christmas with Robert Eggers’ Werwulf. The new trailer is here, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nosferatu) is howling at the moon.

Now that I’ve watched it, this is pretty much everything I was hoping for. One correction, though: we don’t actually see the transformation. They’re holding that back, and whether we get a look closer to release or have to wait until theaters, I’m happy to let that be a surprise.

What we do see is weirdly beautiful, but also soaked in mud. Grimy, disgusting, earthy, ugly, and fucking mean. There’s a warmth to some of Eggers’ imagery that makes his bleak storytelling even more unsettling, and here it feels like we’re being thrown straight into the pit of hell.

The plague-ravaged setting already looks horrific enough. Imagine trying to survive a disease tearing through everyone around you while a rogue werewolf is also running around slaughtering people. As if these people didn’t have enough shit to deal with.

For fans of The Witch—raises hand, that’s me—this is a pretty exciting prospect. Eggers has yet to fail me, and this looks like absolute hell in movie form.

Watch the new trailer below.

Set in 13th-century England, Werwulf follows a man cursed to become a werewolf as he searches for salvation through love. Eggers co-wrote the screenplay with Sjón, his collaborator on The Northman. Focus Features describes the film as “a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation and the devil within.”

As we discussed in , Eggers has explained that the medieval setting lets him move away from familiar werewolf conventions. Being bitten and using silver bullets aren’t the rules governing this particular nightmare. Going further into the past gives him room to approach the creature through a different understanding of folklore.