Victorian Psycho

Victorian Psycho

A brazen gothic horror with a gloriously psychopathic heroine

The eccentric governess Winifred Notty arrives at the Pounds’ country estate. Before long, a series of brutal murders begins to plague the neighbourhood, and the veneer of respectability cracks, revealing a world of madness and violence. “Victorian Psycho” is a brazen blend of Gothic horror, dark comedy and blood-soaked thriller, with Maika Monroe delivering an unforgettable, magnetic performance.

In the mid-19th century, Winifred Notty, an eccentric, peculiar governess, arrives at the Pounds’ country estate to oversee the education of their children. Her strange mannerisms and wildly expressive face inspire little confidence, nor do her macabre teaching methods or her taste for the grotesque and the vile. The master of the house, a pompous, self-important prick, is immediately taken with the shape of the new governess’s skull and decides to study it, while his wife takes an instant dislike to the young woman and comes up with ever more inventive ways to humiliate her. Meanwhile, murders begin to plague the neighbourhood, a baby disappears from its cradle, and everyone who has somehow crossed Miss Notty meets a painful end, screaming all the way.

“Victorian Psycho” is an unconventional thriller that echoes the works of Charles Dickens, Gothic horror classics, including Henry James’s celebrated “The Turn of the Screw”, and, of course, the cult classic “American Psycho”. Steeped in an atmosphere of dread, the film is nevertheless distinctly contemporary, breaking the fourth wall not only through its many pop culture references but also through Winifred’s direct, brazen stares straight into the camera. As brutal as a public execution, it is also irresistibly funny and audacious, much like its psychopathic heroine. The violence escalates with every scene, culminating in a finale that feels like a blood-soaked bacchanalia. The film also offers one of the more compelling screen portrayals of psychosis in recent years, wrapped in a surprisingly timely story about privilege and exclusion.

The screenplay for “Victorian Psycho”, based on Virginia Feito’s own brilliant and uncompromising novel, was written by Feito herself. The film is directed by Zachary Wigon, whose credits also include the 2022 film “Sanctuary”. Maika Monroe, horror’s new queen, delivers an extraordinary, absurd and magnetic performance. She has already left her mark on the genre with roles in “It Follows”, “Longlegs” and the new version of “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”. Joining her on screen are a gloriously repellent Ruth Wilson as the lady of the house, the wonderfully slippery Jason Isaacs, and Thomasin McKenzie, known, among other films, for “Last Night in Soho”.