Released: 9th May
Seen: 11th May
The story of Cinderella is one that’s been told more times than anyone would be insane enough to count. It’s been animated, it’s been turned into multiple musicals, it’s been parodied and referenced and put in every position that the insane creative mind can consider. It’s even been the subject of many horror films over the years, which makes sense considering the Brothers Grimm iteration of the story is particularly brutal. Indeed several major versions of the story lean into some pretty violent imagery, the Into The Woods version of the story has the stepsisters cutting off their heels in a direct reference to the Brothers Grimm while the Revolting Rhymes version by Roald Dahl had the prince lopping off heads, so this is a story that’s perfect for a horror retelling. The Ugly Stepsister tackles the story from the genre of Body Horror and does a beautiful job at it.
The Ugly Stepsister in question is Elvira (Lea Myren), one of the daughters of the social climber Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) who has just married a wealthy man who only has one daughter of his own. That daughter, the rather beautiful Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), doesn’t really like her new family and likes them even less when her father dies. Unfortunately, Agnes’ father had no money to his name and so Rebekka must now try to marry off once of her daughters to the rich Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) and sin ce she doesn’t like Agnes and her youngest Alma (Flo Fagerli) isn’t even old enough to have gone through puberty yet, it’s up to Elvira to be turned into a woman worthy of the prince… no matter how painful the process might be.
As is often the case in horror, this film uses its story as a brutal critique of the beauty industry and how young women are encouraged by society to put themselves through barbaric ‘treatments’ in order to achieve a pleasing aesthetic and oh boy does it not hold back. The Ugly Stepsister doesn’t need anything outrageous or supernatural to be effective; just an old-fashioned version of rhinoplasty or a demented spin on eyelash extensions is enough to have the audience cringing in their seats. The elements of horror here are all too real, either just actually doing things people have done to improve their image or barely exaggerating them in a way that’s just disturbing. Each time you see Elvira she gets more and more seemingly beautiful, but also more and more depressed and sickly as though the attempt to be beautiful is slowly killing her.
Elvira herself is a pitiable character, one you truly come to feel horrible for even when she snaps and seemingly loses all sense of rational thought. She’s just a girl with a crush on a handsome prince, the thing we’re all shown time and time again in fairy tales as a beautiful thing that turns ugly when her crush pushes her to do awful things to her own body to fit a certain standard. Through years of retellings we as an audience are primed to hate the Stepsisters in Cinderella because the films have always been presented from Cinderella’s point of view but seeing it from Elvira’ perspective shows that really none of the daughters have a good go of it, Elvira is treated just as badly but her abuser isn’t the stepmother but the expectations of the world that Elvira will be a beauty no matter what.
The intense vulnerability of Elvira makes The Ugly Stepsister work and a lot of that is down to Lea Myren. In this wonderfully calculated performance, a hint of unhinged obsession grows throughout the film. Every time Elvira descends further into whatever treatment will make her more beautiful you can see the pained determination in her gaze, she knows it’ll hurt to do whatever she has to do to be thin or have the perfect nose or fit the daintiest shoes but she’s going to do it and it’s absolutely soul destroying. Lea Myren put everything into this, giving us one of the most vulnerable characters of the year.
What also helps is thatThe Ugly Stepsister is not shot like one might expect a brutal body horror film to be shot, if anything it feels more like a Jane Austin period piece with carefully considered camera moves and lush sets, were it not for the moments of brutality brought on by the bloody beauty standards you could pass this off as a standard classic literature film where everyone lives in elaborate castles and wears wigs bigger than their heads. It completely commits to this look, only ever so rarely breaking it for when the film needs to kick the disturbing imagery up a few notches (notably right at the end when shit gets gnarly). It’s so careful with how it handles every shot that it makes things almost more disturbing, the rhinoplasty moment is filmed so calmly and casually that it makes everything more intense. It allows for moments of subtlety in a genre of film known for being over the top and it makes everything feel more real.
The absolute genius of The Ugly Stepsister is that it doesn’t stray that far from the story we all know, if you know the full Cinderella story you know how everything’s going to go and the core beats that need to be followed. It can’t really surprise you with a twist so it uses the change in perspective to keep things fresh. It lets us view Cinderella from a different perspective and gives her imperfections we never got to see before, we can look at the wicked Stepmother and see a woman trying to make it in a world not designed for women of her age and of course the stepsisters bond is shown as something beautiful that will hold them together no matter what. It’s a way to twist the story without changing it fundamentally and the confidence to do that is admirable.
The Ugly Stepsister is certainly not the kind of film that’s going to appeal to everyone, there’s more than a few moments here that will make even a seasoned fan of the genre cringe in their seat but for those who are game enough to give it a shot it will reward you with something truly special. A dark twisted, slightly kinky and undeniably fucked up take on a classic from your childhood, hope you enjoyed that childhood while it lasted because this is going to destroy it for you. It critiques beauty while being horrifyingly beautiful, it’s gotten a ton of buzz for a reason and might be one of the best horror films of 2025, and with the year almost half over I don’t know what might beat it for that title.
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