Maika Monroe, scream queen of “It Follows” and “Longlegs” fame, is no stranger to sinking her teeth into horror. She’s repeatedly shown herself to be a compelling screen presence whose haunting expressions alone hold the power to make any genre movie at hand that much better.
That being said, she’s never had a project quite like “Victorian Psycho.” This is because, in this fun yet ultimately fleeting little film, she is the character who is the direct cause of most of the violence and death. She’s also not an antagonist, but the protagonist and narrator through whom we observe all of this. Playing a governess who is brought to work at a swanky manor in Victorian England, she initially just wants to be accepted, but the means by which she will try to get there increasingly involve bloody destruction.
This change of script for Monroe on its own makes “Victorian Psycho” worth your while. She gives a performance that’s right up there with Mia Goth in “Pearl” while also building a uniquely unsettling creation all her own. There’s nothing that ends up proving terribly surprising or ambitious in how the rest of the film unfolds around her, but there’s no denying just how committed Monroe is to the performance.
Premiering Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, it opens with Monroe’s Winifred Notty as she’s traveling to her new gig as a governess looking after two snotty children (Evie Templeton and Jacobi Jupe) of the stuck-up Mr. Pounds (Jason Isaacs) and Mrs. Pounds (Ruth Wilson). Something went seriously awry with her last job, but she’s now hoping that this one will provide an opportunity for a fresh start. Then, shortly after arriving, she starts to run into problems. The prevailing issue is that, unfortunately for Winifred and all who come into her path, she is perpetually on the cusp of becoming a murderous psychopath.
There’s a dark pleasure then to seeing Winifred proceed to tear the upper class apart, both mentally and soon physically, with Monroe proving believably unhinged as she does so. Based on the book of the same name by Virginia Feito, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, it’s got plenty of darker jokes that ensure even the more meandering bits have a sufficiently sinister spark to them. Even when it does start to eventually run out of steam, Monroe never slows down, making even the quiet moments feel like they could explode at any second. It’s a truly exciting, unpredictable performance that keeps you locked in.
There is still something moderately disappointing in how Wigon isn’t quite able to recapture the sharp edge and dark humor of his previous film, “Sanctuary.” In “Victorian Psycho,” the reliance on narration right out of the gate robs the film of a sense of surprise and discovery, as well as any potential deeper ideas for us to ponder. Even as Monroe is impossible to predict, the film itself hits just about all the notes you’d expect it to, dulling some of the blows it lands when you can see it winding up to swing.
Thankfully, Monroe still comes out on top, making it another winning performance in a horror career already stacked with them.
“Victorian Psycho” releases in theaters on Sept. 25 via Bleecker Street.
