Alexander Skarsgard Unleashes Gothic Terror in The Wolf Will Tear Your Immaculate Hands from the Writer of The Northman

Alexander Skarsgard is heading back into moody period territory, this time with a title that sounds like a cursed nursery rhyme: 'The Wolf Will Tear Your Immaculate Hands.' It reunites him with Sjon, the novelist/poet/screenwriter who co-wrote 'The Northman' with Robert Eggers three years ago. Variety says this one is the English-language debut of director Nathalie Alvarez Mesen, whose first feature, the Spanish-language 'Clara Sola,' was shot in Costa Rica.

What kind of horror are we talking about?

Gothic, slow-burn, and a little uncanny by design. Mesen and Sjon co-wrote the screenplay, set in the 1880s Pacific Northwest. Skarsgard plays a British widower who hires a Native American governess, educated in a Christian mission school, to teach his two daughters. While the governess prepares the eldest for an arranged marriage, something inside the girl starts to stir — the kind of awakening that doesn’t care about etiquette or doctrine, and threatens to blow up everything she has been taught. The premise has that slippery border between the rational and the supernatural that either crawls under your skin or drives you nuts. I’m betting on the former.

Cast and who’s playing who

• Alexander Skarsgard as the widower father
• Darla Contois ('Little Bird') as Isabel, the governess
• Bronte Carmichael ('Christopher Robin') as the elder daughter
• Lily La Torre ('Run Rabbit Run') as the younger daughter
• Forrest Goodluck ('How to Blow Up a Pipeline') in a supporting role
• Pernilla August ('The Best Intentions') in a supporting role

Mesen’s vibe, turned darker

If you saw 'Clara Sola,' you know Mesen likes intimate character work blended with touches of the mystical. The team is pitching this as an expansion of that style into a bleaker, more haunting period world — more candlelight, more dread, more unanswered questions.

'I feel incredibly lucky to work with a cast who dive into their roles with such generosity, playfulness, and openness. Collaborating with such a talented group of people from all around the world has been a privilege. Darla embodies Isabel with visceral emotional depth, and Alexander portrays the father with a truth and volatility that ground the story. I can't wait for the film to reach audiences!'

- Nathalie Alvarez Mesen

'As someone who’s worked with myth and folk stories in novels, songs and screenplays, I was immediately fascinated by Nathalie's command of bringing to the screen something as difficult as the shifting borders between the inner and outer reality of her film's protagonist.'

- Sjon

Where it stands

Production is underway right now in Belfast, Northern Ireland. No release timing yet, but between the cast, the setting, and that very particular mix of folklore and repression, this one feels like a stealthy must-watch in the making.