The first trailer for “Werwulf” drops next week, and even now, details about Robert Eggers‘ latest horror movie remain shrouded in secrecy. But a new interview Esquire had with the filmmaker unveiled a few morsels for Eggers fans to chew on before the upcoming teaser, and they’ll be glad to hear that, as per usual with an Eggers film, “Werwulf” is fully steeped in meticulous period detail, in this case from 1300s England and Medieval Europe.
READ MORE: Robert Eggers’ ‘Werwulf’ & New ‘Sense & Sensibility’ Unveiled At CinemaCon
Eggers got into the nitty-gritty of his historical research for “Werwulf” early in his talk with the outlet, admitting that the “fairly scanty” werewolf lore from the Britain of that era forced him to investigate other medieval regions of continental Europe. The lack of English sources had a valid explanation, however. “I learned that basically because of protections for the wool trade, there was a big effort to get rid of all the wolves in England. It was pretty successful,” explained Eggers. “So, the movie takes place around 1300, and that’s as late as it could be because once there were no wolves in England, there was no more werewolf lore in England. That became interesting, that it was going to be set so medieval.”
Some of the other European historical sources that Eggers looked at may be familiar to fans of his film “The Northman.” “I mean, if we really want to get into it, we can talk about the Berserkirs and the Úlfhéðnar [an Old Norse word for “wolf-coats”) that you see in the Northmen, that come from Viking culture. And there are all kinds of wolf warriors from before that,” he continued. However, that lore didn’t work with the Christian setting of “Werwulf,” where wolves were not regarded as symbols of totemic power, but instead a creature that was essentially proto-satanic. “There is some stuff like that in the film,” Eggers confirmed about that vein of Christian symbolism from the era. “The idea of the wolf as ‘The Dark One who’s trying to ruin your life’ was pounded into these people’s heads.”
But beyond the religious contexts of his research, Eggers wanted “Werwulf” to follow the predominant lore of the medieval time period, “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,” Eggers explained. “They must be inhuman. They must be werewolves.” But Egger also wants to instill his new movie with a humane understanding for the men who committed such horrible acts, something he stumbled upon reading through trial testimonies of the period’s werewolf killers. “What was really interesting was that for some of the men, it was really clear in their confessions and through the things that they were saying in the trials that they are victims of trauma,” said the director. “Some of these stories of young men who had traumatic childhoods was inspiring and [that’s] something that we explore here.”
Of course, the medieval setting of “Werwulf” also provided Eggers a tabula rasa in his use, or lack thereof, of cinema’s well-trodden werewolf lore. Eggers happily declared that none of that mythology, like the cliché that only silver bullets may kill a werewolf, is present in his film, explaining that “the cool thing about going back into the past is that you can kind of hit a reset button.” “You don’t need to have seen Lon Chaney Jr.’s “The Wolfman” or “An American Werewolf In London” to get what’s going on here,” he quipped.
Eggers unveiled some of the other small details about the cast of “Werwulf,” too. For one thing, not a single character, not even Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the film’s lead, has a name; “aside from a dog,” Eggers joked. Taylor-Johnson plays a farmer in the film, someone who Eggers described as “cursed and is trying to find salvation through love.” Lily-Rose Depp plays the farmer’s wife, “the most gracious person in the film,” and a character who’s a “very different person from [the actress] and very different from any character she’s ever played.” As for Willem Dafoe? “It’ll be clear from the trailer that Willem is a hunter,” teased Eggers.
But the most important character in “Werwulf” may be its medieval setting, which Eggers described as “a really brutal, unforgiving, merciless, grotesque world.” “This world…is perhaps as scary or horrific as the werewolf, but it is something that you want to be immersed in,” the director explained. “It’s really important to see it in theaters so that you can be there and smell it and taste it and hear it.” To intensify that sense of immersion, Eggers shot “Werewulf” on 35mm film and used an orthochromatic treatment with director of photography Jarid Blasche to make the film’s visuals especially gritty. “The grain adds something archaic and makes the film more grungy and dirty,” he continued, saying the film has “a very unique look.”
Eggers also decided not to shoot at any remaining medieval places for the film in order to retain accurate period detail. “There’s several churches in the film that are based on real churches, but even these very old churches in England don’t look the way they did,” he explained. “Things have been upgraded over the years. So every structure was built for the film.” However, location shooting did happen in Dartmoor National Park in England and in forests in Wales. Any buildings and edifices seen in the movie, however, were created by the production team: “it was all built from the ground up,” said the director.
So, just how grimy and horrific will “Werwulf” be in both visuals and tone? Fans of Eggers find out next week when the first trailer for the film debuts, courtesy of Focus Features. As for its theatrical run, “Werwulf” premieres in theaters everywhere on Christmas Day, just like Eggers’ previous film, “Nosferatu.” Take a look at a new pic from “Werwulf” below.
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