Victorian Psycho is a delicious little freak of a horror film

Victorian Psycho is a murderous tale adapted by author Virginia Feito from her own novel, complete with cannibalism, axe-murdering and infanticide.

It’s also the film I saw at Cannes Film Festival that was probably having the most fun.

Directed by Zachary Wigon, it’s gleeful in both its blood-letting and pitch-black humour.

Although it won’t terrify you, it’s gruesomely gothic, amusing and builds tension around the unpredictability of its titular psycho, eccentric young governess Winifred (Maika Monroe).

She is also our (unreliable) narrator, announcing at the start of the film: ‘My name is Winnifred Knotty and I’m the sanest person I’ve ever met’, all the while demonstrating an unnervingly vacant facial expression when not practising her fixed grin.

Monroe is a renowned scream queen, switching over from the horror genre’s usual ‘final girl’ part in films such as It Follows and Longlegs, to play the baddie here with a largely decent period RP accent.

While she might be the psycho, once we’re introduced to the Pound family of the grand Ensor House (led by Jason Isaacs and Ruth Wilson, both deliciously creepy and severe), it becomes clear that Winifred is not really the villain of the piece.

This is quite something to realise when she’s questioned about her past, and it transpires that she comes from a village notorious for a string of dead babies, and her most recent charges are still missing, while a previous one drowned.

There’s something about her upbeat matter-of-factness around her horrifying crimes that’s oddly endearing, and further empathy is built with passing references to her bleak childhood.

But the instructions are clear here for what Winifred must do with her young students, Andrew (Hamnet’s Jacobi Jupe) and Drusilla (Evie Templeton): ‘Make them smart but not too smart.’

Mr Pounds reminds the governess that his daughter, in fact, ‘risks fertility with over-education’, while Mrs Pounds generously requests she doesn’t beat the children.

‘I shan’t even look at them!’ eager-to-please Winifred declares bizarrely, which encapsulates push and pull between the movie’s comedy and horror elements.

In Victorian Psycho, for every silly joke or dry remark made, there’s still a good amount of gore for horror heads – from misplaced body parts, including an ear (later eaten), to sprays of blood from bludgeoning. And yes, she does shockingly kill a baby.

But among all this is the dark humour of Winifred getting Andrew to quote: ‘Please, not my daughter’s fingers’, clearly a past plea that’s stuck with her, and Mr Pounds’ casual allusion to his father’s paedophilia as he was ‘married to the children’ following his wife’s death but ‘preferred the boys’ (a twisted joke that appeared to fly over the heads of others in my early morning screening).

He’s also a phrenology fan who’s keen to get his hands on Winifred’s head, among other things, for a thorough examination, while his sour wife eyes up her looks and wants to know her secrets. Well, beauty secrets that is.

Winifred is also causing pesky whispers among the servants, which she’ll have to deal with in her own way, while befriending naïve nurse Ms Lamb (Thomasin McKenzie).

Complicating matters and stopping Winifred from being the true sociopathic serial killer from the novel is the introduction of ‘Fred’, the demon she believes is living inside her and controlling her killing impulses.

While Monroe manages to act the full gamut of Winifred’s confusing emotions and motives well, introducing some sort of immediate excuse for her behaviour does slightly dull the impact of the film’s final frenzy – as well as its commitment to being a truly shocking horror.

Victorian Psycho premiered at Cannes Film Festival on May 21. It will be released in the US on September 25. The UK release date is yet to be confirmed.

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