It’s all the rage to take traditional stories and invert them by making a sympathetic villain the protagonist, but THE UGLY STEPSISTER (2025, streaming on Shudder), a fresh take on the Cinderella story, drives it to a whole new level. Rather than skating on the premise, this Norwegian horror film aims for from-the-ground-up reinvention as it harvests brutal body horror and strong themes, making this movie a cross between Cinderella and THE SUBSTANCE.
In this movie, Elvira travels with her sister Alma to a new home in a country ruled by the dashing Prince Julian, whose book of love poems inspired Elvira into a swoon of passion and desire for a fairy-tale romance. There, she meets her new stepfather and stepsister Agnes, whom she initially admires but comes to resent for being naturally graceful and beautiful. When the stepfather dies, Elvira’s mother needs to marry Elvira off to raise money, with them sharing a goal of her marrying the handsome Prince Julian, who is hosting a ball where he will choose his bride.
Thus begins a brutal competition where Elvira will do anything to transform herself to become beautiful using painful and primitive beauty methods and gain what she believes is the perfect man and life.
Thematically, pretty much everything is covered here, from the unfairness of beauty standards and the sacrifices and pressure to conform to them to the belief that beauty is the ticket to a perfect romance and life. While it’s low-hanging fruit, it’s done extremely well by showing (in the most brutal way possible) instead of telling, trusting the audience to get it. From the start, Elvira is a deeply sympathetic character, slowly sacrificing her inner for outer beauty. The sets and costumes all look both formal and shabby, reinforcing the conflict between image and reality. While Agnes is her opponent, the real antagonist is her mother, who gets everything she wants by selling sex, whom Elvira will become if she carries on her path. And then there’s the body horror, which on a 1-10 Cronenberg scale jumps between 7 and 11, made all the more horrific because we really come to care for Elvira as a character.
Overall, I found THE UGLY STEPSISTER impressive and liked it a lot. It could have traded on a gimmick and instead reached for something far more substantial and affecting.
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