Victorian Psycho Trailer Lets Maika Monroe Loose in 1858

Maika Monroe has spent plenty of time running from danger. In Victorian Psycho, everyone else may need to start running from her.

Bleecker Street has released a new official Victorian Psycho trailer for director Zachary Wigon’s period horror film. Following the earlier teaser, the new footage gives us a fuller look at Monroe’s Winifred Notty, a governess who enters a remote manor with a smile, a lesson about good and evil, and more than a few reasons for the household to worry. The new trailer was announced by Bleecker Street on July 30.

Victorian Psycho opens in theaters September 25.

Maika Monroe Is the Danger This Time

The most compelling part of the new trailer is how completely comfortable Winifred appears while everyone around her becomes increasingly uneasy.

She moves through the manor with the composure expected from a proper Victorian governess, but there is something wrong beneath the surface. Her questions about good and evil sound less like a lesson for the children and more like someone testing how much darkness the household is prepared to recognize.

The trailer leans into rigid manners, pitch black humor, and sudden violence without explaining every strange event inside the house. We know Winifred is hiding something. The fun appears to be watching the rest of the household realize it much too late.

What Is Victorian Psycho About?

Set in 1858 England, Victorian Psycho follows the eccentric Winifred Notty as she arrives at Ensor House, a remote gothic manor where she has been hired as a governess.

As Winifred settles into her new position, strange events begin raising suspicions that she may not be what she seems. Bleecker Street’s public synopsis wisely keeps the details limited, leaving the trailer to establish Winifred’s unsettling personality without giving away how far the situation eventually goes.

The film stars Maika Monroe alongside Jason Isaacs, Thomasin McKenzie, and Ruth Wilson. Zachary Wigon directs from a screenplay by Virginia Feito, who adapted her own novel of the same name.

`Victorian Psycho opens in theaters September 25. Poster courtesy of Bleecker Street.`

A Gothic Manor With a Mean Streak

The period setting does not appear to be there simply to provide candlelight, elaborate costumes, and an impressive old house.

The rules of Victorian society give Winifred something to push against. Everyone is expected to remain polite, proper, and controlled, even when it becomes obvious that something deeply uncomfortable is happening inside Ensor House. The trailer finds much of its humor in that conflict between respectable appearances and increasingly unrespectable behavior.

That could give Victorian Psycho an identity beyond the usual isolated manor story. Rather than presenting Winifred as a frightened newcomer trapped in someone else’s nightmare, the film appears to place her in control of the discomfort from the moment she arrives.

What We Think

Maika Monroe has become one of the most reliable faces in modern horror, but this looks like a very different role for her.

Instead of quietly absorbing the terror around her, Winifred appears outward, theatrical, and completely willing to make everyone else uncomfortable. Monroe looks like she is having a great time playing someone who can seem perfectly composed one moment and barely interested in pretending to be normal the next.

The tone may be the most promising part. The trailer looks willing to be funny, cruel, and violent without turning the entire movie into a joke. The title naturally invites comparisons to American Psycho, but Winifred already feels strange enough to stand on her own.

We already had Victorian Psycho on our September review schedule. This trailer made that decision look considerably better.