Victorian Psycho Review | Zachary Wigon | 2026 | 1 hr 42 min
- Director Zachary Wigon
- Starring Maika Monroe, Jason Isaacs, Ruth Wilson
- Runtime 1 hr 42 min
- Distributor True Brit Entertainment (UK and Ireland)
- Subgenre Gothic horror comedy
- Reviewed by Hope Madden
In 1858, a governess named Winifred Notty arrives at the Yorkshire estate of Ensor House to take charge of a wealthy family’s children. Something is badly wrong with her, and the household is about to find out.
This Victorian Psycho review looks at Zachary Wigon’s film of Virginia Feito’s 2025 novel, which sends Maika Monroe to Ensor House in 1858 as a governess with something badly wrong with her. Feito adapted her own book, and Ruth Wilson and Jason Isaacs play the employers in this latest addition to our horror movie reviews. Hope Madden, who also reviewed Monroe in Longlegs, came in hopeful after enjoying the novel. She found a frenzy of blood and energy with little underneath it. Here is where that frenzy works, where it stalls and who should buy a ticket.
Winifred Notty is mad from the moment she takes the post, and Victorian Psycho has nowhere left to take her. It is a fun, energetic, frenetic bloodbath with a strong supporting cast, but with no one to root for, it is a bloody comedy without much bite.
— GINGER NUTS OF HORROR
Victorian Psycho Review: Maika Monroe and Zachary Wigon in Full Frenzy
A Victorian era governess loses it, and terrible things happen. That’s the long and short of Victorian Psycho. But don’t expect the spectral maddening of 1961’s masterpiece The Innocents. Winnifred Notty (Maika Monroe) was mad the moment she took the position.
I enjoyed Virginia Feito’s slight but delightfully violent 2025 novel. It read very much like a movie, so when I learned that Feito herself was adapting the novel for the screen, I was pleased.
With Sanctuary’s Zachary Wigon to direct and Monroe as lead, things looked promising.
The supporting cast impresses, particularly Ruth Wilson and Jason Isaacs as Winifred’s employers. But problems creep in almost from the start.
Monroe seems slightly lost. Her voiceover is sometimes wonderfully dry, but her performance on the whole relies on a maniacal facial expression and stiff gait.
But Winnifred Notty is an unhinged lunatic, and I say that with great admiration. Within moments of arriving at Ensor House, body parts are falling out of luggage and staff members turn up missing. The film, almost immediately, is a frenzy of blood and viscera.
There’s basically nowhere to go.
Feito trims out Winifred’s backstory, nearly eliminates the feminist underpinnings of the book, gives just a nod to its classist upbraiding, and paints every character with the broadest possible brush.
What remains is a frenetic bloodbath, filmed with bodymounts and Dutch tilts to amplify the mania afoot. It’s fun. It’s full of energy. It amounts to nothing.
You don’t root for anybody. You don’t root against anybody. And because one pivotal character is drearily underdeveloped, the final shot holds none of the wicked satisfaction of the novel.
That’s not to say it’s a bad film, just that it’s a bloody comedy without much bite.
3 stars out of 5
The Verdict: Is Victorian Psycho Worth Watching?
3out of 5
The verdict
A frantic, energetic bloodbath with a strong supporting cast, but a bloody comedy without much bite.
Watch it if: you want a fast, gory, high-energy ride led by a committed Maika Monroe, and you are not holding the film to the novel.
Skip it if: you want the book’s feminist and class edge intact, or someone on screen to root for.
Content warnings: strong bloody violence, gore and brief sexual material.
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About Ginger Nuts of Horror
Ginger Nuts of Horror is an independent horror review and culture site based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Edited by British Fantasy Award nominee Jim McLeod, it publishes horror book reviews, film reviews, author interviews, features and cover reveals. Ginger Nuts of Horror won Best Inclusive Film & Book Review Platform at the SME News UK Enterprise Awards 2026.
