The first official trailer for period Robert Eggers’ newest horror period piece Werfwulf has been unveiled.
The film, which is set to be released in cinemas on 25 December, is set in 13th century England and follows a 13th-century farmer (Taylor-Johnson) who transforms into the titular beast.
The footage gives fans a first look at this gory metamorphosis and the protagonists’s brutal world.
“I heard of a ravenous beast that ravaged this country,” one character says, before we see Taylor John’s character frothing at the mouth and undergoing a bestial transformation. “My soul is cursed. My kin are cursed. My world is cursed,” he says.
You can watch the trailer for yourself below:
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As well as directing, Eggers co-wrote the movie with Icelandic writer and poet Sjón, who also co-penned Eggers’s 2022 Norse film The Northman.
Alongside Taylor-Johnson, Lily-Rose Depp (Nosferatu), Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse), Ralph Ineson (The Witch), and Bodhi Rae Breathnach (Hamnet) also star.
The projects marks a reunion for Taylor-Johnson, Depp and Eggers, after the trio previously worked together in Nosferatu.
The trailer also shows off the film’s unique and gritty aesthetic, which Eggers recently told Esquire was achieved using an orthochromatic treatment in post-production, which makes the actors’ complexions more sickly, and by “incorporating the grain structure of black and white film onto colour film”.
Meanwhile, speaking about the historical inspiration behind the film, Eggers said he drew on Dark Ages werewolf lore from England and continental Europe and aspects of Viking culture.
He also warned viewers that the film won’t feature any of the tropes viewers have come to expect from werewolf movies, saying: “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.”
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