Victorian Psycho Review [MIFF 2026]

When it tries to be scary, it just isn’t. And I didn’t care for anyone Notty was killing

Victorian Psycho is an odd film that I never really felt knew how funny, tonally offbeat, or scary it wanted to be. There’s a commitment from the cast to make this ‘Norman Bates’ crossed with Jane Eyre work, but instead of a successful transfusion of genre, it’s just a bit odd.

From the first frame and the V.O. of Winifred Notty (Maika Monroe), we know something’s off with her. This is told to us through the psycho-killer stare into the frame, paired with the “I’m the sanest person I’ve ever known,” which is something only someone who is not sane would say in their own inner monologue. Nonetheless, Notty is here to arrive at Ensor House, a manor in which she’ll be the governess to the children of Mr and Mrs Pounds (Jason Isaacs and Ruth Wilson).

At times it does seem like Victorian Psycho wants to parody Wuthering Heights, with some serial-killer undertones. At other times, it genuinely feels like it wants me to find Winifred Notty to be this oddball but still scary lead, someone I should be both endeared by her desire to be a good governess for this house and also repelled by her apparent need to do evil things. Is this supposed to be Dexter?

One scene I did love is one in which Notty is speaking with Mr and Mrs Pounds at dinner or breakfast about how she should be teaching their children. And they want her to put all effort into making their son smart and set up, but they don’t want their daughter to get quite the same treatment, as she could be set up to waste too many years on education or something else not as useful as her previous “baby-making years.” But it’s also scenes like this that worked so well that made me feel like this whole film would have worked a lot better if it had just committed to some oddball parody of the Eyre and adjacent period films because Victorian Psycho is funny in these moments.

When it tries to be scary, it just isn’t. And I didn’t care for anyone Notty was killing, nor did I care if she got away with the killings or got caught herself. In fact, I didn’t care for anyone in this film. It’s just a bunch of bad, hard-to-root-for characters, even if they are portrayed with great commitment by the cast, who I do believe were told to step up their performances to a nearly cartoonish level at every turn.

[Dylan attended a screening thanks to the Melbourne International Film Festival]