Frustrating in the most… well… frustrating ways, Victorian Psycho is a movie without a point of view, a clear plot, or an identity. Despite a cast of great thespians, this lackluster black comedy/horror movie can’t find a reason to exist, so it flails around like a struggling fish left alone on the deck of a boat.
Written by Virginia Feito, based on her own novel, the movie centers on Winifred Notty (Longlegs Maika Monroe), a governess who arrives at the Pounds household to care for two children, Drusilla (Wednesday’s Evie Templeton) and Andrew (Jacobi Jupe). Their parents, played by Ruth Wilson and Jason Isaacs, are an eccentric couple with a clear distaste for each other and, most likely, their children. Rounding out the household is nurse Miss Lamb (Thomasin McKenzie), a giggly thing who tries to befriend the new governess.
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Which brings me to the title character. Winifred opens the film with her head tilted as she rides in a carriage to her new job. Immediately, we know something is off about this girl, and she doesn’t exactly hide her nutty tendencies. Within the first 10 minutes, she eats an ear and tells the children an increasingly chaotic story that reveals her true colors. So yeah, we pretty much get that she’s a psycho from the moment the film begins. Not to mention, all of her previous charges are dead.
The movie then slugs along with Winifred hearing voices, trying not-so-hard to fit in with the family, and beginning her eventual murder spree. That’s not a spoiler. The movie is literally called Victorian Psycho.
And herein lies the problem. While Monroe crafts a character of delusional imbalance, Winifred has no real character arc, aside from one secret revealed in the final act. But even that reveal doesn’t explain much about her murderous tendencies leading up to it. She just gets progressively more unhinged while the wacky family reacts.
This movie has no driving force. No characters to root for. It’s just eccentric camera angles, moody lighting, and Monroe mugging for the camera.
Director Zachary Wigon utilizes every wonky cinematic trick he can think of to make certain we know the characters—and the movie itself—are unhinged. It’s an exhausting 102 minutes.
The impressive cast is game, but I’m not sure they were entirely certain what type of film they were in. Is it a broad comedy? Black comedy? Straight horror? As a result, all three sort of mesh together willy-nilly, to the point where not much can be taken seriously, and nothing is particularly shocking or, to be honest, all that gruesome.
Jason Isaacs feels right out of The Pirates of Penzance, while Ruth Wilson (who I adore) once again plays a mean mother—the second time this year. (The first was the horror film Family.) The children fare better, with Jupe playing it bratty and manipulative, while Templeton moves in a more sinister direction.
Monroe is always impressive, and she clearly relishes playing it unhinged. It’s a relentlessly brave performance in a film that really needed to know what it wanted to say.
As it stands, Victorian Psycho is a surface-level horror film filled with endless familiarity. There’s a toxic family with emotionally abandoned children, a mentally unstable governess who sees creepy paintings get creepier, hears voices telling her to do things, sees ghosts, and stands over beds with scalpels. For horror lovers, none of this is particularly new or interesting.
The story needed a point of view—a reason for the horror and Winifred’s instability. Instead, we watch blankly as things happen on screen until, eventually, the credits roll.
Victorian Psycho is aggressive in its need to be both shocking and naughty. Instead, it winds up just exhausting and dull. I’ll stick with American Psycho, thank you very much.
Victorian Psycho opens in theaters on November 13, 2026.
