‘Victorian Psycho’ Review: Maika Monroe Is Only Partly Unhinged In This Subdued Horror [Cannes 2026]

After delivering outstanding performances in Longlegs and It Follows, indie Scream Queen Maika Monroe is back in Victorian Psycho. While she can’t go batshit crazy in this adaptation of Virginia Feito’s novel, murdering her way through Victorian families in 19th-century England definitely suits her. This time, she enters the household of Mr. (Jason Isaacs) and Mrs. Pounds (Ruth Wilson) as Winifred Notty, the new governess of their two children, Drusilla (Evie Templeton) and Andrew (Jacobi Jupe).

Despite her more notable outlook and the wonderful sounding name, it doesn’t take long before you realise she’s not your average Mrs. Doubtfire or Mary Poppins. Winifred might not look like a psycho killer, but there’s undoubtedly a darkness lurking inside her. When she can keep it (or Fred, as she calls it) at bay, she certainly fits in with the more established family living in the remote Ensor House in Yorkshire. However, when her Mr. Hyde comes out to play, the seriously dark game is definitely on. It’s a shame director Zachary Wigon (Sanctuary) keeps Fred on the sidelines for too long and then doesn’t fully take advantage of him when he’s brought on. Winifred isn’t the classic serial killer, as there’s a reason why she specifically chose this family, besides her wanting to climb the social ladder. Maybe that’s why Wigon holds the horror element back slightly.

Who doesn’t hold back, though, is the cast. While Wilson (His Dark Materials) portrays the matriarch of the family as a little bit too rigid, her unwavering protectiveness, sometimes to an excessive degree, leads to utterly creepy confrontations between Mrs. Pounds and Winifred. While her on-screen husband, Isaacs (Event Horizon), primarily serves the film’s comedic streak, his behaviour takes a more ominous turn once he becomes entangled in Winifred’s world. Sadly, this only happens at the very end of the movie. If it had happened earlier in the storyline, we would definitely have witnessed an even more sinister Isaacs and Monroe.

The chaos the latter unleashes from the onset when she consumes her first (and definitely not only last) human ear is both incredibly deeply perplexing and frustrating at the same time. She takes you on an intriguingly bleak journey, and slowly but steadily, her menacing counterpart starts to dominate her mind and life. Each faintly disturbing smile or distorted look gives you the chills right from the start. Those are highly effective forebodings of all the malevolence that’s approaching. However, when Winifred finally embraces her murderous side (and it takes far too long to get there), the film delivers remarkably little carnage. The promising opening gives way to a conclusion that may leave audiences unsatisfied. 

Is it because Victorian Psycho functions as a somewhat undercooked horror film? A grim comedy with horror leanings? Or something in between? Wigon still hasn’t made up his mind, and this indecisiveness also seeps into the production design. On one hand, there’s ample usage of darker visuals, the flickering of old candles and shadows, but on the other hand, there’s also a slight Bridgerton vibe running through the feature, especially when the family hosts their glamorous upscale parties. Perhaps that cinematographic mismatch reflects Winifred’s increasingly deteriorating view of society and the family she serves, or maybe it’s just a mishap of filmmaking’s aesthetic choices. 

Wigon appears to be the only one who knows, especially since the film also seems to diverge immensely from Feito’s work. While the book delivers the tense, gothic horror one would expect, the film instead leans into the story’s more whimsical elements. Maybe it’s because 2026 (and last year too, actually) has already been saturated with plenty of serious horror features that he wanted to go into a totally different direction. However, he arguably pushes it a little too far, tipping the film’s tone into something more comedic than intended.

While the movie certainly delivers inspiring flashes of macabre and sharp comedy, alongside Monroe’s fearless performance, it mainly drifts between multiple horror ideas without ever finding solid ground. If Wigon had just steered his movie in a better direction, it would have been much more blood-soaking fun than it currently is.

Victorian Psycho was screened at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. It hits US cinemas on September 25, courtesy of Bleecker Street.