There's a reason Robert Eggers doesn't make many films. He makes obsessions. “The Witch” was a Puritan's nightmare. “The Lighthouse,” a salt-stained descent into madness. “The Northman,” a blood-soaked saga so grim even Wagner might've asked him to tone it down. And now, just in time for the holidays: Werwulf.
Yes, really. A werewolf movie — set in 13th-century England, written in Old English, and dropping on Christmas Day 2026. Eggers says it's “the darkest thing I've ever written.” Which is like a butcher saying, “this one has extra blood.”
Let's start with the facts.
A recent report from Nexus Point News confirms that Werwulf will reunite Eggers with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Lily-Rose Depp, the pair that fronted his Nosferatu revival. Taylor-Johnson, reportedly cast as the titular beast, is stepping fully into monster territory this time — no fangs or top hats, just fur, fangs, and probably some very poetic snarling. Depp's role remains under wraps, but if her work in Nosferatu is anything to go by, she'll bring the kind of haunted fragility Eggers loves to torture.
Production begins this September in Elstree, England, according to a local casting call. Eggers is once again writing with Icelandic poet Sjón, his co-conspirator on The Northman. Which means we're in for another linguistic exercise in madness. Expect characters to speak in phrases that haven't been uttered since the Magna Carta. Expect studio execs to sweat over subtitles.
And expect no compromise. Eggers flirted with the idea of black-and-white cinematography — he scrapped it, apparently, but don't count on anything visually comforting. His gift (or curse) is for making beauty feel like a threat. Every frame hints at death, or worse, transformation.
The sound team already seems traumatized. One of them posted on BlueSky that he “needed a hug” after reading the script. That's not exactly a press quote, but it's about as honest as we get these days.
So why the werewolf? Why now? Why Christmas?
Here's the thing. Most horror directors start with monsters and get serious later. Eggers went the other way. He started serious — historical, literary, arthouse-serious — and only now is dipping into the old-school Universal canon. First Nosferatu, now Werwulf. These aren't pastiches, though. They're resurrections. With claws.
You might remember Nosferatu quietly dropping into theaters last December, only to rake in $40 million in five days — double expectations — and go on to gross $181 million worldwide. That's unheard of for a moody vampire film written like a funeral dirge. It also made Eggers Focus Features' most bankable director overnight.
Now, it seems, he's carving out a new niche: Holiday horror auteur. Let the Hallmark crowd have their cocoa — Eggers is bringing dread to December, every other year like clockwork. Merry Christmas, here's your existential crisis.
And yet, there's a quiet logic here. The winter holidays have always held a touch of the uncanny. Pagan roots, long nights, the promise of something just beyond the hearth. Dickens understood this. So does Eggers — he's developing a second project: a pitch-black Christmas Carol with Willem Dafoe as Scrooge. But that's later.
For Werwulf, Dafoe's involvement remains unconfirmed. But considering he's been in every Eggers film since The Lighthouse, I'd be more surprised if he didn't show up. Probably as some emaciated priest or half-blind sorcerer muttering riddles into the snow. You know — Tuesday for Dafoe.
The real question, though, isn't whether Werwulf will be good. (It probably will.) The question is whether audiences will keep following Eggers into darker and darker woods.
The Witch was bleak. The Lighthouse was maddening. The Northman was brutal. Nosferatu was funereal. And Werwulf? According to Eggers himself, this one might break the scale.
Eventually, that kind of pitch-black vision either burns you out or becomes your brand. Right now, Eggers is balancing both. He's a risk, sure. But he's a risk that pays off. And that, in this industry, is rarer than a good werewolf movie.
So we wait. Another winter. Another descent. Another Eggers film to remind us that art isn't supposed to be safe.
And frankly? I'll take that over a CGI sleigh ride any year.
