‘Victorian Psycho’ Review: Maika Monroe Shines in Uneven Slasher
Zachary Wigon’s Sanctuary was one of the most thrilling surprises of 2023, and one that positioned the American filmmaker as one to watch even more, as he made his grand return almost ten years after the release of 2014’s The Heart Machine. His latest effort, Victorian Psycho, itself adapted from Virginia Feito’s novel of the same name, possesses the same aesthetic confidence as his previous effort but is devoid of any real bite.
Victorian Psycho desperately wants to provoke through a titular character to gawk at for how truly “insane” she is. After all, the film’s voiceover narration from Maika Monroe’s Winifred Notty tells us the character is “the sanest person I’ve ever met,” which is obviously an oxymoron, considering she doesn’t seem very well.
In any event, Victorian Psycho subjects us to 102 minutes of endless diatribes in a story divided into seven chapters, as Notty becomes the governess of Ensor House and its children, Andrew (Jacobi Jupe, incredible) and Drusilla (Evie Templeton). As she gets the hang of the mansion and its owners, Mr. Pounds (Jason Isaacs) and his wife (Ruth Wilson), staff members begin to get killed one by one.
This is fun and all, until we realize that the movie is heading towards uninteresting territory when it refuses to develop the central character at the heart of the picture. There’s so much violence and perverse imagery before Victorian Psycho becomes redundant and relatively dull.
How Victorian Psycho fails its central character
At some point, one begins to ask who this is for. American Psycho certainly had something to say about the character it depicts, but Victorian Psycho doesn’t seem at all interested in Notty beyond the film’s unwieldy image-making.
There’s a relatively jarring first-person shot of an ear going into Winifred’s mouth that is both gross and invigorating because it lets us peer into her tormented psyche for the first time. It’s also the only moment when Wigon and Feito (who wrote the screenplay) dig deeper than the surface.
All they have are gratuitous kills and fun camera moves, but is that enough to satisfy an audience watching nothing but meaningless images?
It’s strange, because Wigon does have an eye for the visual medium of cinema, and he knew how to heighten tension in Sanctuary through how he blocked and moved his camera. In Victorian Psycho, he still knows how to create (a lot of) movement, but none of what he stages has any significance.
This is most exemplified during the movie’s climax, which floats between Notty’s dreamlike state and the nightmare of reality. In isolation, this could’ve been a scene that would open up the viewers’ understanding of what boils in Winifred’s mind, because this is, after all, the thesis of the source material. What drives Notty to such evils? Why is she the way she is? And why can’t the audience have access to a true bloodbath that would’ve made Victorian Psycho far more entertaining than it is?
There’s a scene where Mr. Pounds tries to excavate what he thinks is in her brain, but the screenplay quickly pivots to something else and tries to “reveal” something that isn’t really there. Of course, it’s to prove that Winifred can’t be trusted, but we already knew that. There’s nothing remotely inventive or genuinely nail-biting about a movie about a psychopath in aristocratic times that says anything about the character it’s depicting.
It’s also strangely tame with violence, even if it isn’t afraid to kill people other than adults. This R-rated slasher usually cuts away from the blood and never lets us see anything, which defeats the purpose of a (tormented) character study like this. Why advertise the film as shocking if you’re not going to show anything shocking?
Maika Monroe shines as Winifred Notty
At least Maika Monroe is excellent, and the right person needed to portray Winifred. Her comedic timing is pitch-perfect, especially when paired with Jacobi Jupe, who steals the entire movie from everyone else.
The fact that Jupe seems to enjoy dark stories (his breakout turn was in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, and he is set to star in Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist: Martyrs) speaks to what he wants to do on screen: roles that let him challenge himself at such an early age. In this one, he’s simply having fun and letting loose, just like everyone else.
Victorian Psycho film rating and final thoughts
The cast is the reason why Victorian Psycho remains watchable, even if it doesn’t really go anywhere.
Wigon is also a gifted image-maker. He knows how to craft a bevy of arresting and jaw-dropping frames. In his last effort, they were at least loaded with intense meaning. In Victorian Psycho, they serve as window dressing for the movie’s glaring flaws.
When you start to interrogate what the movie doesn’t do very well, the images fall apart. When that happens, there’s no saving this disastrously conceived and ultimately ill-advised character study.
Victorian Psycho releases in theaters on November 13, 2026.
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