‘Victorian Psycho’ Director on the Challenge of Making a ‘Demented’ and ‘Funny’ Movie Where You Root for Maika Monroe’s Serial Killer
“Victorian Psycho” is a film that lives up to its brazen title.
Maika Monroe plays Winifred Notty, a young governess who arrives at the sweeping Ensor House in the 1850s, ready to work for the well-to-do Pounds family. But Winifred also harbors a violent past and dark impulses, and a series of brutal happenings soon overtake the mansion.
The film, which is set to bow in Un Certain Regard on May 21, tumbles through tones, swerving through pitch-black humor, empathy, fury and larger-than-life moments. Director Zachary Wigon suggests a term that cleanly sums up his vision.
“The word I kept using was ‘demented,’” he says. “It’s a big tent. Demented encompasses scary, but also funny and outrageous.”
“Psycho” is Wigon’s third feature, following his 2014 debut, “The Heart Machine,” and 2022’s genre-shifting two-hander “Sanctuary.” While open to a new project, the New York City-based director discovered the work of Spanish novelist Virginia Feito and reached out to her. They discussed some different ideas, and then she offered him a chance to read her then-unpublished manuscript for “Victorian Psycho.”
“What really struck me was every page was filled with this incredible intensity and anger,” he says. “The novel changed forms a little bit from that early draft that I read to what she ended up publishing. But the anger and the intensity of it was so acute that the experience was like being gripped on every page. At the same time, it was really funny. I’d never read anything like it before.”
“Psycho” is a work that shifts gears frequently, and Wigon says it was essential to collaborate with Feito, who adapted her own work for the screen, make sure the foundational text was airtight.
“If the script is feeling true, then going from a scene of horror to a scene of comedy to a scene of character-based drama isn’t a gimmick if it’s true to the situation and the psychological subjectivity of the character,” he says. “So if it’s true on the page, then it becomes an execution question. As a director, you have a blueprint for a very complicated house and develop the structural engineering so that it can stand.”
That sturdiness is doubly important when getting the audience on the side of a depraved central character.
“The key thing is being connected to the protagonist’s subjectivity,” Wigon says. “Even if you are not rooting for them, when you recognize how aberrant and awful their behavior is, if you’re connected to their subjectivity, you understand why, to some degree, they feel the way they feel, or why they view the world the way they do.”
Monroe transforms into the eponymous role in a manner that expands on her previous work in dark films like “It Follows” and “Longlegs,” and the story hinges on her ability to transform herself from a mannered young woman to a murderous rage without hesitation. Wigon says that the pair narrowed in on the character by speaking about “expressionistic performance.”
“One of the interesting things about Maika is her incredible ability to have a restrained, contained intensity on screen,” he says. “There’s this sense with her screen persona that there’s something very intense going on behind her eyes, in her head, that you’re not able to track. Instinctively, I felt it would be compelling to cast her as a serial killer, because we’re so curious about what’s going on in their head.”
Although Wigon is keeping his upcoming projects and interests quiet for now, he’s “over the moon” about premiering his demented vision at Cannes.
“It’s a surreal and unbelievable honor,” he says.
Maika Monroe plays Winifred Notty, a young governess who arrives at the sweeping Ensor House in the 1850s, ready to work for the well-to-do Pounds family. But Winifred also harbors a violent past and dark impulses, and a series of brutal happenings soon overtake the mansion.
The film, which is set to bow in Un Certain Regard on May 21, tumbles through tones, swerving through pitch-black humor, empathy, fury and larger-than-life moments. Director Zachary Wigon suggests a term that cleanly sums up his vision.
“The word I kept using was ‘demented,’” he says. “It’s a big tent. Demented encompasses scary, but also funny and outrageous.”
“Psycho” is Wigon’s third feature, following his 2014 debut, “The Heart Machine,” and 2022’s genre-shifting two-hander “Sanctuary.” While open to a new project, the New York City-based director discovered the work of Spanish novelist Virginia Feito and reached out to her. They discussed some different ideas, and then she offered him a chance to read her then-unpublished manuscript for “Victorian Psycho.”
“What really struck me was every page was filled with this incredible intensity and anger,” he says. “The novel changed forms a little bit from that early draft that I read to what she ended up publishing. But the anger and the intensity of it was so acute that the experience was like being gripped on every page. At the same time, it was really funny. I’d never read anything like it before.”
“Psycho” is a work that shifts gears frequently, and Wigon says it was essential to collaborate with Feito, who adapted her own work for the screen, make sure the foundational text was airtight.
“If the script is feeling true, then going from a scene of horror to a scene of comedy to a scene of character-based drama isn’t a gimmick if it’s true to the situation and the psychological subjectivity of the character,” he says. “So if it’s true on the page, then it becomes an execution question. As a director, you have a blueprint for a very complicated house and develop the structural engineering so that it can stand.”
That sturdiness is doubly important when getting the audience on the side of a depraved central character.
“The key thing is being connected to the protagonist’s subjectivity,” Wigon says. “Even if you are not rooting for them, when you recognize how aberrant and awful their behavior is, if you’re connected to their subjectivity, you understand why, to some degree, they feel the way they feel, or why they view the world the way they do.”
Monroe transforms into the eponymous role in a manner that expands on her previous work in dark films like “It Follows” and “Longlegs,” and the story hinges on her ability to transform herself from a mannered young woman to a murderous rage without hesitation. Wigon says that the pair narrowed in on the character by speaking about “expressionistic performance.”
“One of the interesting things about Maika is her incredible ability to have a restrained, contained intensity on screen,” he says. “There’s this sense with her screen persona that there’s something very intense going on behind her eyes, in her head, that you’re not able to track. Instinctively, I felt it would be compelling to cast her as a serial killer, because we’re so curious about what’s going on in their head.”
Although Wigon is keeping his upcoming projects and interests quiet for now, he’s “over the moon” about premiering his demented vision at Cannes.
“It’s a surreal and unbelievable honor,” he says.