“Victorian Psycho” is almost fun enough if you don’t think much about how much more fun it should be. It’s got some inspired bits of horror and comedy, bloodily tied together with a fearless performance from arthouse scream queen Maika Monroe as a sort of Patricia Bateman for the Victorian era. If the star of “It Follows” and “Watcher” murdering her way through stuffy old England sounds like a blast, you’re not wrong, but Zachary Wigon’s follow-up to the wonderfully twisted rom-com that was “Sanctuary” never quite reaches its bonkers potential. It’s a film that opens with Monroe’s psychotic behavior at such a fevered pitch that one expects a blowout of a finale, but leaves unsatisfied by a movie that too often feels like it only wants to go half-crazy.
Adapted by Virginia Feito from her novel of the same name, “Victorian Psycho” stars Monroe as the wonderfully named Winifred Notty, whose surname aptly describes her “naughty” behavior. (There’s also a reference to a character named Pouncey-Fancey if you’re wondering how seriously this should all be taken.) In the year 1858, Notty arrives at the stately Ensor House, led by Mr. (Jason Isaacs) and Mrs. Pounds (Ruth Wilson). They have two children: Drusilla (Evie Templeton) and Andrew (Jacobi Jupe), for whom Winnie will be the new governess. There’s also an infant being cared for by the sweet Ms. Lamb (Thomasin McKenzie), who tries to befriend Winnie without knowing her true identity.
“Victorian Psycho” imagines a refined, stately world of upper-class England being torn apart, quite literally, by a young woman who barely hides her Mr. Hyde, known as “Fred.” Why Fred is being unleashed on the servants, and, eventually, the owners and children of Ensor House is a secret that Feito’s script holds for a bit too long, and then does too little with when it arrives. Without spoiling, there’s a reason that Notty has arrived at Ensor House beyond her desire to chop up aristocrats, and the film might have been stronger if it hadn’t been saved for a last-act reveal.
Knowing her motives earlier might have tied together the often-combative tonal halves of “Victorian Psycho.” Wilson plays her matriarch so straight that it feels like she’s doing “Downton Abbey,” but Isaacs goes so over-the-top that he could be in a Mel Brooks parody of the genre (and a theme of pineapples representing wealth fits that comedic vein as well). McKenzie is doing horror, and Monroe gets to flash a terrifyingly broad smile under wide eyes as the film’s unhinged focus. They’re all kind of in different movies.
Even the design and production elements can’t quite figure out which page they belong on, to the point that one wonders whether the incongruity is intentional, meant to replicate Notty’s fractured mental state. If that’s the case, Wigon needed to really lean into the idea that his protagonist’s demented worldview is bleeding into the filmmaking’s aesthetic choices. As is, it just feels too often unsure of itself or the story it’s telling, a surprise given the open-to-close confidence of “Sanctuary.”
Most frustratingly, “Victorian Psycho” refuses to pay off on the promise of its bloodshed. It’s no spoiler to say that this movie has to end with murders, plural—it’s right there in the title—but Wigon pulls his punches, choosing to center Monroe’s undeniably expressive face instead of the chaos being unleashed not far from it. It’s a baffling choice in a frustrating movie in that you can’t open a movie with a character eating body parts and then not get truly bananas when it’s time to do so. By the end, Notty is in full Psycho Mode, but we don’t really even get the satisfaction of the carnage.
Maybe that’s because Wigon, Feito, and company never quite figured out if they were truly making a horror movie? There’s enough death and dismay to make that question surprising, but “Victorian Psycho” often feels too much like a comedy, one of those movies that nudge-nudges you with a “can you believe this” tone to the filmmaking without giving us enough to believe in.
This review was filed from the Cannes Film Festival. It opens stateside on September 25, 2026.
