THE WITCH, THE LIGHTHOUSE, THE NORTHMAN, NOSFERATU and now WERWULF.
From vampires, to witches to wolves, director Robert Eggers’ latest film has a new trailer – coincidentally debuting on June’s full Strawberry Moon which rises tonight.
“it’s a very textured and dirty look, but also detailed. Which should make the gruesome, grisly, miserable, horrible, no-good, very-bad mediaeval world even nastier and smellier than it ever could be.” – Eggers
Official Synopsis: Witness Robert Eggers’ most visceral and haunting experience yet. Focus Features presents WERWULF, a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation and the devil within.
Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp, Focus Features will release WERWULF in theaters on December 25th.
Composer Robin Carolan is scoring the film and once again collaborating with Eggers as he did on NOSFERATU and alongside Sebastian Gainsborough for 2022’s THE NORTHMAN.
In an interview with Empire, when asked: “The final shot has Aaron bone-crunching, foaming at the mouth. That’s as much as you give us, werewolf-wise, as it were. For now.
Yeah, this is a slow-burn horror that’s about the tension and the anticipation and the mystery and the darkness, and… we don’t want to give it away. But… this film is immersive, and needs to be experienced full-immersion, on the big screen. If you’re not smelling all the shit and mud in the street, then you’re not experiencing this movie properly.
I hope they put that on the poster. I don’t think they will.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson stars as “Man” in director Robert Eggers’ WERWULF, from FOCUS FEATURES. The studio released this first look at the upcoming film, due in theaters December 25th.
Official Synopsis: Witness Robert Eggers’ most visceral and haunting experience yet. Focus Features presents WERWULF, a harrowing tale of devotion, damnation and the devil within.
Previously starring in Eggers’ 2024 hit, NOSFERATU, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp once again feature in Eggers’ new movie. NOSFERATU earned four Academy Award nominations, including Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. The film is streaming on PEACOCK.
In a recent interview with Esquire, the director said of the WERWULF wolves: “We worked with wolf-dog hybrids, which we also worked with in Nosferatu. But Aaron spent time with a real wolf, and we learned a lot about the wolf’s behavior. We incorporated a lot of what we learned into his performance, and his interactions with Lily, and some of the other things that he does in the film.”
As a farmer, he must be somebody who lives remotely, lives on the land. What’s the world like for this man?
It’s a really brutal, unforgiving, merciless, grotesque world. More than ever, it’s mud and blood and dung and rain and pain and suffering. Aaron’s performance is incredibly harrowing. We’ll say without a doubt that it’s his best performance, and the stuff that he does physically in the transformation scenes are incredibly extreme. The emotional intensity he brings to role is equally as extreme.
Who is in his life? Lily-Rose Depp is in the movie. Both of them are working with you again after Nosferatu.
Lily, she is the heart of the movie. Lily is truly transformative. There’s a very clear physical change in her body and her makeup, but she inhabits a very different person that’s very different from her and very different from any character she’s ever played. She’s Aaron’s wife, and she’s a mother of several children and also a farmer. She’s sort of the most gracious person in the film.
What can you share about Willem Dafoe’s character? Everybody’s curious to see what you do with him since you’ve worked so closely with him over the years in all of your films.
It’ll be clear from the trailer that Willem is a hunter.
Before Bela Lugosi created the image of an elegant Dracula in Todd Browning’s film DRACULA, F.W. Murnau made the brilliant silent film NOSFERATU, the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s eerie novel. Stoker’s estate refused to let the legendary German director use the book’s title but Murnau made the film anyway, renaming the vampire Count Orlok and re-setting the latter part of the story in Germany rather than England. Director Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU is an outstanding film that both honors and recreates Murnau’s great classic, while also adding a modern horror edge as well.
Fans of Murnau’s incredible silent horror film will delight in Eggers’ new NOSFERATU, which faithfully recreates several of the striking scenes in the original. NOSFERATU is visually astounding, with gorgeously eerie scenes and set pieces, often using the central, symmetric framing typical of the silent movie era. Scene after scene opens with either a perfect recreation of Murnau’s atmospheric composition or a sternly creepy vista that sets the tone for the horror to come. The dark, brooding scene of a coach wending its way through stark looming mountains, to enter the sinister castle, which is featured in the movie’s trailer, is but a small taste of the visual delights to come. Leaning into the visual power of the silent is the perfect choice.
Although there have been countless Dracula movies, only a handful have gone back to Murnau’s great silent, with his Count Orlok. Those exceptions have included SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, a chiller about the making of Murnau’s silent, and Werner Herzog’s NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE, with the great Klaus Kinski.
While Eggers’ based his script on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” and Henrik Galeen’s screenplay for the first NOSFERATU, there are a few changes. The source of the vampire Count’s fascination with his real estate agent’s fiancee (his wife in this tale) is different and references to Vlad the Impaler, the blood-thirsty Eastern European Medieval prince who was Bram Stoker’s partial inspiration for the vampire in his novel.
The cinematography and the script are near flawless in this homage to the brilliant original, and the modern horror elements added by director Eggers, including leaning into the psycho-sexual aspects of the story, help bring the story into the current era without violating its late Victorian gothic setting. However the pacing is a bit slow for modern horror fans. Further, Bill Skarsgard’s Count Orlok, after his first appearance, looks more like a bulky if decaying Prince Vlad than Max Streck’s skeletal Orlok, making Orlok seem more intimidating than truly scary.
The cast includes a splendid Willem Dafoe as the Van Helsing-like Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz. Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas Hutter, the first victim to aid Count Orlok’s escape from the castle, and Lily-Rose Depp plays his wife Ellen, who in this retelling is the reincarnation of Orlok’s former lover. Lily-Rose Depp’s performance is bold and over-the-top, sometimes veering into the absurd, but Nicholas Hoult’s more grounded, sincere performance helps balance things. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin do fine work as the Hutters’ friends Friedrich and Anna Harding, but the other supporting actors give the horror tale its real fire, with outstanding work by Ralph Ineson as Wilhelm Sievers and Simon McBurney as creepy Herr Knock.
This remake/update NOSFERATU is a treat in particular for fans of Murnau’s original, but may not connect for all horror fans not familiar with the silent classic. Hopefully, they will remedy that by seeing the Murnau film, ideally on a big screen with live music.
Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake. The film stars Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe.
Opening in cinemas on Christmas Day is Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU, a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
The cast includes Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe.
Focus Features has released the creepy new trailer for the upcoming movie.
An interesting choice to release the film during the holidays instead of October, but Eggers films always do well with audiences. His movies include The Witch (October 18, 2015), The Lighthouse (October 18, 2019) and The Northman (April 22, 2022).
‘Nosferatu Original Soundtrack’ – featuring music by Robin Carolan – will be released physically via Sacred Bones and digital via Back Lot Music on November 22nd, 2024. Pre-order linkshere.
Focus Features has released this first teaser for the highly anticipated NOSFERATU.
Starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and Willem Dafoe, Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.
The German silent horror film released in 1922 was notable for being the earliest surviving film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and for its technically novel and effective cinematography. Directed by German Expressionist filmmaker F.W. Murnau from a screenplay by Henrik Galeen, Nosferatu is known for its haunting vampire imagery, made possible in part by the state-of-the-art film tricks of cinematographers Fritz Arno Wagner and Günther Krampf, and for an eerie performance by Max Schreck as Count Orlok/Nosferatu.
Nosferatu the Vampyre, a German-French production directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski and Isabelle Adjani, was released in 1979. It is a relatively faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that incorporates elements of Murnau’s Nosferatu. Kinski, as Dracula, suffered for his art, spending four hours in the makeup chair every day for his transformation into the blood-driven count.
Shadow of the Vampire, directed by E. Elias Merhige, was released in 2000. It is a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu in 1922, with the amusing premise that Max Schreck was a real vampire, cast by F.W. Murnau for authenticity. John Malkovich played Murnau, and Willem Dafoe portrayed Schreck.
Composer Robin Carolan reunites with Eggers for the score. The two previously worked on THE NORTHMAN. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke is back behind the camera for another of the director’s films. They collaborated on THE LIGHTHOUSE, THE WITCH and THE NORTHMAN.
Focus Features will release NOSFERATU in cinemas on Wednesday, December 25th
Focus Features announced today that production has commenced on Robert Eggers’ highly anticipated next film NOSFERATU.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Bullet Train) has joined the cast, starring alongside Bill Skarsgård (Barbarian), Nicholas Hoult (The Menu), Lily-Rose Depp (Wolf), Emma Corrin (Lady Chatterley’s Lover), Willem Dafoe (Inside), Simon McBurney (Carnival Row) and Ralph Ineson (The Green Night). NOSFERATU is written and directed by Robert Eggers. Jeff Robinov, John Graham, Eggers, Chris Columbus and Eleanor Columbus are producing the film, which is currently filming in Prague.
Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman in 19th century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.
Taylor-Johnson will next be seen starring as the titular superhero character in the Marvel film, KRAVEN THE HUNTER. He recently wrapped production on the upcoming action/adventure film THE FALL GUY, re-teaming with director David Leitch who previously directed him in BULLET TRAIN. Taylor-Johnson’s additional credits include Christopher Nolan’s TENET and the action-spy feature, THE KING’S MAN, a prequel to the “Kingsman” film series. He is represented by WME, Brillstein Partners and Sloane, Weber legal.
Focus previously collaborated with Eggers on 2022’s THE NORTHMAN. The studio’s upcoming slate includes Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, an untitled comedy from Ethan Coen; Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society; A.V Rockwell’s A Thousand and One; Bill Holderman’s Book Club: The Next Chapter; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 from Nia Vardalos; Zelda Williams’ Lisa Frankenstein; Goran Stolevski’s Of An Age; Vasilis Katsoupis’s Inside and Bobby Farrelly’s Champions, among others.
“I will avenge you, Father! I will save you, Mother! I will kill you, Fjölnir!”
The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave in St. Louis), the best place in St. Louis to see movies! The Hi-Pointe has the best popcorn, the biggest screen, and a great beer selection! No reservations required at The Hi-Pointe. Just show up! Robert Eggers’ THE NORTHMANopens Friday April 22nd at The Hi-Pointe. There is an advance screening Thursday the 21st at 7pm The Hi-Pointe’s site can be found HERE.
From visionary director Robert Eggers comes The Northman, an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder.
Composers Robin Carolan (Tri Angle records) and Sebastian Gainsborough (Vessel) were given a task of epic proportions when director Rob Eggers (The VVitch, The Lighthouse) asked them to create the soundtrack for his ambitious and highly anticipated new film The Northman, releasing on April 22nd via Back Lot Music and physically on July 1st via Sacred Bones Records. The Northman, Eggers action-filled epic, follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe.
“Robert wanted the world of The Northman to feel harsh and uncomfortable, and for everything to feel like it was caked in mud and dry blood, so it was crucial for the score to mirror that” said the composers.
They needed to make a soundtrack that both honored the immense research that had gone into the authenticity of this Viking-era story and complimented the cinematic maximalism of the film for a modern audience. The artists stretched themselves to the depths of their creativity and the resulting album is a gorgeous sonic tableaux that places the listener right in the center of the film. Today they’re sharing a glimpse of the soundtrack with “Storm at Sea / Yggdrasill.”
While arranging the score, the composers consulted musician and ethnographer Poul Høxbro for inspiration and insight into the history of Viking music. Having backgrounds in left field electronic music, Robin and Sebastian felt liberated by the constraint of using a small selection of musical tools for this piece. “Electronic music has almost limitless potential when it comes to making sounds and that’s obviously an incredible thing, but you can also go down the wormhole and get lost in it sometimes. There’s no risk of that happening when you only have a few primary instruments to draw upon.” Robin remarked.
The composers utilized traditional instruments such as the tagelharpa, langspil, kravik lyre, and säckpipa to build the cinematic world of The Northman, but attempted to experiment with what they had as much as possible in order to come up with something that still felt left field leaning. “One of the pieces we wrote was intended to emulate the sound of a bullroarer; an ancient, relatively humble looking instrument used in sacred rituals, or in battle to intimidate enemies. It makes a really disorienting roaring vibrato sound and was capable of creating insanely low frequencies that could travel for miles. For this we attempted to do the same thing, but the twist being that we used a huge, 40 piece string ensemble in order to do so. Recording that made for a pretty mad, suitably unsettling experience.” Robin says when asked about one of the more unique aspects of the soundtrack. Everyone involved put so much effort into both their research and their creativity and this richness is evident in every track. The album as a whole is a cinematic masterpiece of sound and ambiance, both gorgeous and disturbing, like the film it so beautifully accompanies.
Focus Features will release THE NORTHMAN in theaters on April 22, 2022
Focus Features, in partnership with global gaming firm Loaded, announced Friday that it’s thinking differently about promotion for its upcoming movie The Northman, an action-filled epic from director Robert Eggers that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder.
The firms collaborated to create a custom, playable RPG based on the thematic direction of the movie as a way to drive engagement around the film’s April 22nd release, releasing a trailer and partnering with content creators from Twitch and YouTube to promote their first entry into the metaverse.
Top gaming content creators will play “Vengeance: Inspired by The Northman” live on their streams to preview the experience, which estimates a 20+ hour play time for completion of main and side quest storylines. The public can also play the RPG starting today, for free, by entering island code 6089-1011-3272 into Fortnite.*
Global gaming firm Loaded pitched Focus Features on building the experience back in December 2021and has been working with Team Unite to build “Vengeance” since shortly thereafter. Loaded supports a cadre of top brands with gaming strategies and campaign execution, as well as manages some of the biggest creators in the gaming industry.
“We love how forward-thinking Focus has been as a partner,” said Loaded VP of Creative, Ashley Hsieh. “For a lot of brands, the future is scary enough that they continue to do what has worked in the past. When we get an opportunity to partner with a group who is willing to really think about things from a new perspective, it allows us to approach the market from a new direction. These are the types of engagements that change the paradigm, and we’re so proud to have been able to design this experience on behalf of the great team over at Focus.”
Focus Features will release THE NORTHMAN in theaters on April 22, 2022
From visionary director Robert Eggers comes THE NORTHMAN, an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father’s murder. With an all-star cast that includes Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe.
Travel back to the time of the Viking culture, a full and complex civilization of beautiful art, cultural and religious fusion, advanced technology, elaborate customs, and codes of honor and justice, as well as a culture of extreme violence and subjugation, and one where horrific cycles of revenge knew no end.
Click on the link below for a chance to win free passes to the advance screening in the St. Louis area. Tuesday, April 19th at 7:00pm at Ronnie’s
While filming on the hillsides in Northern Ireland in cold and mud to get the visceral look of THE NORTHMAN, to bring the Viking Age to life sonically, Eggers turned to U.K.-based musicians Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough, primarily electronic composers who would be embarking on their first motion picture score. For the score, Eggers wanted instruments from the Viking Age — primarily wind and string instruments, with concessions made for drums, a point of contention among historians who debate their usage among Nordic cultures in the Viking Age. Carolan and Gainsborough created a hypnotic, soaring, transportive, and often thunderous score.
R for strong bloody violence, some sexual content and nudity.
