Have you noticed how enormous Victorian houses immediately suggest something dark? The rooms are cold, the corridors are dark and somebody always appears to be hiding a family secret behind a locked door. Now add a governess who may be a psychopath.
Yeah, that should improve the atmosphere.
Victorian Psycho arrives in South African cinemas on 13 November. The gothic horror thriller stars Maika Monroe as Winifred Notty, an eccentric young woman who accepts a position at Ensor House in 1858. What will she be doing? Teaching the children good manners and preparing them for the world, of course. Well, that looks like a perfectly respectable job.
But there is a huge problem. She’s not coming alone. She is bringing a darkness called Fred with her. Soon, members of staff begin disappearing after she takes up her position. And I’m guessing the missing employees are probably the first clue of something gone wrong.
Winifred enters the house with strict instructions from Mr and Mrs Pounds. Jason Isaacs plays the controlling head of the household, while Thomasin McKenzie and Ruth Wilson are also part of the cast. The trailer gives us candlelit corridors, suspicious behaviour and enough uncomfortable smiling to suggest nobody inside Ensor House should turn their back on anyone else.
The most interesting part is that the film does not hide Winifred’s instability. You see, this is not a story where audiences must spend two hours deciding whether the quiet governess has a dark secret. The title has already done quite a bit of that work. We know something is wrong. The real question is how long the household will take to notice, and what happens when it does.
Maika Monroe feels perfectly suited to the role. She has spent a large part of her career playing women who sense danger before everyone else. In It Follows, something was constantly walking towards her. In Watcher, she became convinced that a man was observing her from another building. And in Longlegs, she investigated a serial killer who made every room feel unsafe. But this time, Monroe may be the reason everyone else feels unsafe.
Now there’s an exciting change.
The film comes from director Zachary Wigon, who previously made Sanctuary. Virginia Feito adapted the screenplay from her own 2025 novel, which means the person responsible for creating Winifred also decided how much of her madness should survive the journey to the screen.
The setting gives that madness somewhere interesting to grow.
Victorian stories often present governesses as quiet women trapped between social classes. They work inside wealthy homes, raise other people’s children and remain close enough to the family to witness its secrets. But they never truly belong there. They are educated, respected when convenient and dismissed when they become difficult.
Winifred appears to understand that position rather well. She simply does not seem interested in suffering through it politely.
According to the Cannes Film Festival, the film takes audiences inside the mind of a psychopath living somewhere between rebellion and madness. So there is more to Victorian Psycho than another story about a frightening woman inside an old house. It may also ask what happens when someone who has very little control decides to take all of it.
Of course, that does not excuse murder.
I just feel the distinction should be made before somebody disappears near the fireplace.
The trailer also suggests that the film will mix gruesome horror with dark comedy. And that combination right there could very well make Winifred far more entertaining than a killer who simply walks through corridors looking miserable. She’s the kind of psycho that appears intelligent, observant and completely capable of maintaining a polite conversation while considering whether to smash your skull or simply finish you off by slitting your throat.
And perhaps that is what makes her unsettling.
A monster hiding in the basement is easy to identify. A governess teaching the children at breakfast requires slightly more investigation. Victorian Psycho opens only in cinemas, including Ster-Kinekor, on Friday, 13 November. Ster-Kinekor’s trailer listing confirms the South African release.
Watch the trailer here:
Ensor House wanted somebody to educate its children.
Unfortunately, it may have invited something far more dangerous through the front door.
