Victorian Psycho Review: Maika Monroe is Sensational in Delightfully Demented Gothic Horror Satire
Cannes Film Festival: Zachary Wigon adapts Virginia Feito’s 2025 novel about a serial killer governess
by Alex Kaan 21 May 2026
Bleecker Street
While Maika Monroe has proven herself in multiple genre films, she’s never starred in anything quite like Victorian Psycho. The Longlegs and It Follows star has a lengthy resume of brooding horror titles, but with its mix of pitch-black humour and unruly violence, this grim satirical period piece from Sanctuary director Zachary Wigon is fresh territory. A Gothic serial killer comedy overflowing with bloody, disturbing fun, Victorian Psycho is a deranged gem of a horror film driven by Monroe’s flawless turn as the title character.
With screenwriter Virginia Feito adapting her novel of the same name, the film follows Winifred Notty, a quirky governess with a toothy grin who accepts a position at a lavish manor. She is charged with little Andrew (Hamnet’s Jacobi Jupe) and Drusilla (Wednesday’s Evie Templeton), with Mr and Mrs Pounds (Jason Isaacs and Ruth Wilson) stressing the importance of their male heir’s education while caring little about their daughter. As Winifred weasels her way into the family’s lives and befriends the superstitious nurse, Miss Lamb (Thomasin McKenzie), it’s revealed that she has left a concerning trail in her wake, filled with missing—or even drowned—children. And the longer Winifrred stays at Ensor House, the more she struggles to keep a lid on her psychopathic tendencies.
Bleecker Street
With a performance worthy of cinema’s great psycho killers, Maika Monroe’s enigmatic governess is an irresistible blend of horrific and hilarious, with shades of Jack Nicholson in The Shining and a hint of Mr Bean-esque physical humour. The actress encapsulates the film’s tonal blend sometimes with a single facial expression, and while Victorian Psycho works as a satire—interrogating or poking fun at the Gothic novel, the British upper class, and the gendered complexities of a female serial killer—Monroe somehow grounds it in a vulnerable, nuanced turn that will have you (somewhat) rooting for her even as she commits despicable acts.
While she undoubtedly carries this film, every member of the supporting cast elevates the film with superb comedic timing and a commitment to the heightened tone. Hamnet breakout star Jacobi Jupe is a standout as the bratty Andrew, proving an excellent sparring partner for Monroe, while Jason Isaacs nails the part of a posh, sleazy patriarch with a fondness for pseudoscience.
Bleecker Street
For fans of Virginia Feito’s book, rest assured that Victorian Psycho adapts that scene. It is a film that unflinchingly breaks taboos, charging every moment with a sense of wild, violent threat that pairs nicely with the laugh-out-loud humour. Meanwhile, with whip-pans, playful editing, and POV sequences, Wigon orchestrates the whole affair with a stylised flair that gives Winifred’s descent into madness a restless, frenetic energy. And as a horror period piece, costume designer Allison Byrne, production designer Jeremy Reed, and cinematographer Nico Aguilar collaborate to deliver a rich Gothic atmosphere and tangible Victorian setting for Winifred to disrupt.
Staying further faithful to the book, what elevates Victorian Psycho is the way in which every joke and kill is underscored by Feito’s thoughtful social observations. Winifred’s internal monologue begins the film by declaring that she is “the sanest person [she’s] ever met”, and Feito’s depiction of the British landed gentry continues to offer some support to that belief even when her protagonist begins to lose her grip on reality.
Both darkly funny and genuinely frightening, Victorian Psycho is violent, stylish Gothic horror with a pitch-perfect Maika Monroe.