Robert Eggers' next horror film, Werwulf, is getting a cinema release that sounds almost old fashioned: a run of 35mm screenings on Christmas Day, with tickets already on sale. If you've been half following the trailer buzz and wondering when you'll actually get to see this one properly, that's the answer. Christmas Day. On film. Nowhere near as wide as a normal studio horror release, which is rather the point.
What Werwulf actually is, and why I'm not guessing at the rest
Werwulf is Robert Eggers' take on the werewolf film. He's the director behind The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, and more recently his remake of Nosferatu, so if you've seen any of those you already have a rough idea of what to expect: slow builds, proper period detail, and horror that earns its scares rather than jumping out at you for the sake of it.
I'm not going to go any further than that, though, because this isn't the piece where I guess at a cast list or invent a plot to make it sound more exciting. The release news that's actually confirmed is about the format and the date, not the story, so that's what I'm sticking to.
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Why 35mm is the real story here
Most films you see in a cinema now are projected digitally, off a hard drive, and the screening looks identical every single time because it's the same file playing. A 35mm print is physical film running through a projector, with the grain, the faint flicker and the warmth that comes from light actually passing through celluloid rather than a file being displayed on a screen. Eggers shoots on film properly rather than treating it as a nostalgic afterthought. The Lighthouse was black and white 35mm. The Northman and Nosferatu both leaned on film stock for the texture you can see in the finished picture.
Striking and shipping 35mm prints is expensive and not every cinema still has a projector that can run one, which is exactly why this is a select run rather than a normal wide release. A 35mm screening of Werwulf is very likely the closest you'll get to seeing the film the way it was actually shot, rather than a digital copy standing in for it.
What's actually confirmed about the release
According to Bloody Disgusting, Werwulf is playing in 35mm at a run of select cinemas on Christmas Day, and tickets for those screenings are on sale now. That's the whole of what's confirmed: the format, the date, and that a list of participating cinemas exists and is growing. I'd point you towards their page for the actual list rather than copy it out here, because it's the sort of thing that gets updated as more screenings are added, and a list I freeze on the day I write this would be out of date within a week.
Christmas Day is an odd slot for this. It's usually kept for big family films and the awards contenders counting down to voting season, not horror, and definitely not a format that physically limits how many screens a film can play on. Choosing it for a werewolf film, in 35mm, in a run small enough that it's being tracked screening by screening, tells you this is being treated as a proper theatrical event rather than something that's mainly there to tick a box before a streaming date.
Why I'm already rearranging my Christmas Day around a format announcement
I'll admit a projection format isn't normally what gets me checking ticket sites. But Eggers is one of the few directors left who treats actually sitting in a cinema, in the dark, watching film run through a projector, as part of what the film is, not just how it happens to reach you. I saw Nosferatu properly, on a big screen, and it felt like a completely different experience to watching it curled up at home with the subtitles on because the dialogue was too hushed to follow otherwise. A werewolf film from the same director, on the same stock, landing on Christmas Day, is exactly the sort of thing I'd shuffle plans around for, and I don't say that about much.
If there's a 35mm screening of Werwulf anywhere near you this Christmas, I'd book now rather than wait. Limited runs like this tend to sell the good time slots first, and nobody's adding extra 35mm screens just because word gets round after the fact. I'm already working out whether I can get to one myself, which is a slightly mad way to spend Christmas Day and also exactly my sort of mad. If you make it to one, don't tell me what happens in it. Tell me what it felt like walking out. That's the review I actually want to read.
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