Somewhere between the period artistry of Poor Things and the unsubtle bludgeoning of The Substance lies The Ugly Stepsister (2025), a striking body horror that searingly inverts Cinderella to comment on impossible beauty standards. Lea Myren stars as Elvira, the elder daughter to Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp), a widow entering into a marriage of convenience to a much-older suitor, Otto (Ralph Carlsson). Elvira’s head is full of unrealistic, girly dreams, and she’s deeply infatuated with the poetry of Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth), whom she is convinced she will someday marry. When Otto promptly dies, however, it quickly becomes apparent that neither of the newlyweds had money, leaving the family — including Otto’s beautiful daughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) — destitute. Their only hope comes in the unlikely form of the prince, who invites eligible virgins to a ball wherein he will choose his bride. Elvira has designs on winning the prince lottery, but the competition is fierce, and Elvira — as the world is determined to constantly remind her — is not beautiful. So, with the help of her scheming mother, a dodgy surgeon, and a cruel finishing school, she sets out to transform herself into the perfect mate.
Like most body horror, The Ugly Stepsister sets out to be a film you can’t unsee — and oh my, does it succeed. It sneaks up on you, though, feeling at first like a fairly conventional costume drama before sifting in enough fairy-tale references to expose the layer of satirical, surreal fantasy. As the Cinderella tropes invade, the scenario grows increasingly nightmarish. Writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt stirs horrific steampunk visuals and contemporary gender politics into the stew, and these elements render Elvira’s transformation both terrifying and topical. Embodied with initial sweetness and increasing ferocity by Myren, Elvira is both sympathetic and cruel, evolving from a naïve, starry-eyed teenager to a woman manipulated by society into single-minded derangement. The messaging isn’t subtle, but unlike The Substance, which borders on insulting the viewer’s intelligence, The Ugly Stepsister lets its strategy unfold in a sly, incremental way, ultimately letting the dark humor and disgusting horror emerge to drive the point home. The result is a potent feminist allegory that leverages extreme imagery in service to an aggressive critique of our chronically warped, toxic state of affairs.
