“Prepare to be Charmed and Chilled: How ‘The Ugly Stepsister’ Transforms Fairy Tale Fantasy into Gripping Body Horror!”
Added on April 15, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards
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In a world where fairy tales collide with the grotesque, The Ugly Stepsister takes the classic Cinderella story and flips it on its head—think more horror and less happily ever after. Picture this: Elvira, our not-so-ugly protagonist, is desperately vying for the attention of a prince while battling the stunning allure of her beautiful step-sister, Agnes. I mean, isn’t this the kind of sibling rivalry that makes you wonder whether the cosmos is aligned against you? With Elvira’s obsession morphing into a dark crusade for beauty—complete with gruesome transformations that might just make you rethink your next trip to the plastic surgeon—this film is a brutally honest take on self-worth and societal expectations, all wrapped up in body horror. It’s a twisted ride that challenges the boundaries of fairy tales and keeps you questioning: how far would you go to fit into your own glass slipper? Buckle up for what could either be a cult classic in the making or a cautionary tale about obsession!
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PLOT: Elvira (Lea Myren) has one all-consuming obsession: to win the affection of her kingdom’s handsome prince and live happily ever after. Yet, she lives in the shadow of her beautiful step-sister, Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), who seems fated for the happy ending she’s always dreamed of. But, in a kingdom where beauty is prized above all things, Elvira will get what she wants, no matter what…
REVIEW: The Ugly Stepsister is the gruesome, body horror Cinderella reimagining you never knew you wanted. Given the many variations on the classic tale, it’s incredible to think that we’ve never gotten a hard-R-rated flick in the vein of The Brothers Grimm’s version of the story. Let’s not forget that the take on Cinderella ends with the evil stepsisters mutilating their feet to fit into Cinderella’s slipper. Director Emilie Blichfeldt conjures up a version that puts the Grim back in Brothers Grimm, delivering us a truly memorable new movie of the classic tale that should be another major hit for distributors IFC & Shudder, who’s been on a huge roll since Late Night with the Devil.
The Ugly Stepsister made its world premiere in the midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival (which is where we caught it) and earned a raucous reaction in Park City. Blichfeldt’s film is a highly stylized, deliberately over-the-top take on the classic tale that should earn favourable comparisons to The Substance. Both films center around one woman’s obsessive quest for physical perfection, no matter the cost.
When the movie starts, Elvira’s mother, Rebekka, has just married into a wealthy family whose patriarch immediately dies. As it turns out, he was penniless, so she hatches a plan to transform her oddball daughter Elvira, who everyone mocks as ugly (even if she’s far from it), into a perfect physical specimen who can marry into wealth. She makes Thea Sofie Loch Næss’s ethereal (but cruel) Agnes into a servant, lest she overshadow her daughter.
Lea Myren delivers a fantastic performance as Elvira, who’s obsessive and unhinged right from the get-go and far from an unwilling participant in her own transformation. She willingly submits to some of the film’s most gruesome moments, such as when she has a primitive nose job done or has eyelashes sown to her eyelids by a plastic surgeon raving about a new substance he’s discovered called “cocaine”. She goes even further than her mother thinks, with cringe-worthy moments involving an ever-growing tapeworm that leads up to the grand guignol finale.
Myren should garner a lot of attention for her fearless performance. Thanks to her nuanced take, Elvira still maintains our sympathy, even as her lunacy grows as the movie progresses. Blichfeldt’s found a terrific lead in her and someone whose performance perfectly fits into the heightened vibe being created.
Technically, this Norwegian-language film is impeccable, with gorgeous photography by Marcel Zyskind, who also shot Michael Winterbottom’s The Killer Inside Me and Viggo Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt. I especially liked the synth-based soundtrack by composer Kaada and Norwegian artist Vilde Tuv, which Blichfeldt, in the press notes, says was inspired by seventies genre soundtracks by Goblin, Roy Budd, and Francis Lai, albeit with a contemporary twist.
While one might rightly ask whether the world needs another version of Cinderella, you can rest assured this demented take, which is NOT for the squeamish, isn’t like any fairy tale movie you’ve ever seen before. The only one that compares is the now-obscure Snow White: A Tale of Terror or Neil Jordan’s classic The Company of Wolves. Hopefully, IFC gives this a solid theatrical push, as it’s beautifully made and could easily become a midnight movie cult classic. I had a blast with it.
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