Maika Monroe has spent years surviving horror movies. In Victorian Psycho, she looks ready to become one. Bleecker Street has released the official trailer for the darkly comic period horror-thriller, casting the Longlegs and It Follows star as a Victorian governess whose carefully contained darkness is beginning to claw its way out. There is blood, disappearing servants, an unfortunate deer and, apparently, a demon named Fred. Watch the trailer above and read on for what to know.
Winifred Notty Is Not Your Typical Governess
Set in 1858, Victorian Psycho follows Winifred Notty, an eccentric young governess who arrives at the remote Ensor House to educate the children of wealthy couple Mr and Mrs Pounds, played by Jason Isaacs and Ruth Wilson.
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Her responsibilities include teaching their children, Andrew (Jacobi Jupe) and Drusilla (Evie Templeton), proper manners and family history. Her teaching methods, however, leave something to be desired. A moment early on sees the children and Winifred coming across an injured deer. She grabs a rock and kills it, then calmly tells the children, “When you come across an animal in pain, the merciful thing to do is to kill it.” The household may have wanted a firm hand. It appears to have hired a predator.
Winifred is fully aware that something is wrong. Whether she can fight it or has any intention of doing so is another question. “I feel this darkness inside me, like a caged animal,” she says. “I fear I am succumbing to darkness.”
As staff members begin disappearing, suspicion falls on the new governess. Nurse Ms Lamb, played by Thomasin McKenzie, is particularly unconvinced by Winifred’s attempts to present herself as a respectable addition to the household.
Fred Is the Demon Living Inside Her
That tone is captured perfectly during an exchange with Andrew, played by Jupe, who was wonderful in the title role of Hamnet. “You may call me Fred,” Winifred tells him. “But Fred is not a lady’s name,” the confused boy replies. Her response: “Fred is the name of the demon that lives inside me.”
It is not yet clear whether Fred is a joke, a name Winifred has given her psychopathic urges or evidence that something genuinely demonic is lurking beneath the surface.
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it received a generally solid early response. Monroe’s committed performance and the film’s wicked sense of humour were among the most consistently praised elements. The film holds a 77% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing.
From the Director of Sanctuary
Victorian Psycho is directed by Zachary Wigon, marking his third feature following the Margaret Qualley and Christopher Abbott thriller Sanctuary and his 2014 debut, The Heart Machine. Virginia Feito wrote the screenplay, adapting her own 2025 novel of the same name.
Release Date
Victorian Psycho is scheduled to open in Australian cinemas on September 24 and U.S. cinemas on September 25, 2026.
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