Werwulf Director Robert Eggers Reveals New Details About His 'Hell-Like' Medieval Horror Film

Director Robert Eggers has unveiled new details about his upcoming film, Werwulf, a medieval horror movie set in 13th-century England. In the film, Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Man, a farmer cursed to transform into a werewolf. Lily-Rose Depp and Willem Dafoe star as Man's wife and a wolf hunter respectively, while Ralph Ineson and Jack Morris take on the roles of fellow wolf hunters.

The film's opening scene, which features a dialogue-free nighttime sequence of wolves howling, sets the tone for the dark and primal tale that follows. Eggers emphasized that the film aims to ground the audience in the harsh reality of the period, with a primitive and brutal world that "really helps ground the audience." Werwulf is a period werewolf movie, designed to be emotionally engaging without relying on dialogue, as Eggers said, "You don't need to understand what anyone's saying to understand the movie because you're with everyone on an emotional level, particularly Aaron and his family."

The film's research-intensive process, involving Middle English dialogue and historical accuracy, contributes to its hellish atmosphere, as Eggers aimed to capture the extreme and taboo nature of werewolf lore in his period setting.