Men's Lifestyle June 29, 2026 0 Comments

Unlock the Dark Secrets of Werwulf: This Medieval Horror Trailer Will Leave You Breathless and Hungry for More!

Ever wonder what it would be like if Robert Eggers, master of eerie atmospheres and chilling tales, decided to unleash his beast mode on a medieval werewolf story? Well, wonder no more—because his latest film, Werwulf, is prowling its way onto screens this Christmas, promising the kind of dark, immersive horror that made us all fall head over heels with The Witch and Nosferatu. Set in 13th-century England, this isn’t your typical monster flick padded with clichés—Eggers is all about stripping back to raw, chilling roots, with an authentic period vibe and a transformation sequence that’s said to be nothing short of harrowing. Plus, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Lily-Rose Depp leading the charge, and Willem Dafoe hunting down a “raving beast,” expect some seriously intense showdowns. So, if you’ve ever wondered how medieval werewolf lore sticks the landing in today’s horror landscape—mark your calendars and get ready to find out. LEARN MORE

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Robert Eggers is going beast mode. Following Esquire’s exclusive first look at Eggers’s next movie, Werwulf, Focus Features has unleashed the official trailer. Possessing the same eldritch vibes of the director’s previous work like Nosferatu, The Lighthouse, and The Witch, Werwulf is shaping up to be another dark and spooky hair-raiser for the Christmas season.

On June 29, Focus Features debuted the full-length trailer to Werwulf, a new period horror movie by Robert Eggers. Set in 13th-century medieval England, Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars in Werwulf as a cursed farmer living a lycanthropic nightmare. Lily-Rose Depp, who previously starred in Eggers’s acclaimed Nosferatu, co-stars as Taylor-Johnson’s wife, whilst frequent collaborator Willem Dafoe plays a creepy hunter on the hunt for a “raving beast” that roams the countryside. (So, expect those two to clash in the climax, if we had to wager.)

The money shot happens in the final moments of the trailer, when Taylor-Johnson—whose eyes and sweat glisten in the light of a full moon—begins foaming at the mouth in slow motion. The marketing for the film is, wisely, holding back on what a medieval werewolf will look like. Admit it: You want to see what Taylor-Johnson looks like with silver hairs all over his body. Well, you’re going to have to sit your butt inside a theater on Christmas Day to do so.

You can watch the trailer below.

With visible film grain, a compressed Academy aspect ratio, and what Eggers told Esquire is modified Middle English dialogue, Werwulf is more of the immersive and meticulously-designed historical horror that the director has specialized in since his breakout hit The VVitch in 2015. Now that Eggers has made films with evil witches and vampires, it’s fitting he takes on another quintessential monster archetype. Hopefully, his efforts fare better than Leigh Whannell’s middling Wolf Man, whose own werewolf reveal was ruined when its title monster was unceremoniously unveiled at Universal Studios in drab lighting like a Spirit Halloween display.

As for the medieval setting, it isn’t arbitrary. In an interview with Esquire, Eggers said that the setting was chosen because of the end of the wool trade circa 1300 England. “[T]hat’s as late as it could be because once there were no wolves in England, there was no more werewolf lore in England,” he said. “The werewolf lore there is born from people who were doing such horrific, indescribable acts that it was hard for other people to wrap their minds around it. They figured these people can’t be human. They must be inhuman. They must be werewolves.”

Eggers elaborated that the movie shies away from other werewolf story clichés—silver bullets, for example—because of its specific period setting. “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,” he said.

But there is a transformation sequence, which Eggers hyped up as “harrowing” and one of Taylor-Johnson’s single best performances. “The stuff that he does physically in the transformation scenes are incredibly extreme.”

But will Werwulf actually scare us to death? We’ll know come Christmas Day if theaters are packed with feral audiences.