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.

HERETIC (2024) finds horror in conventional religion regardless of where you stand on belief. With solid pacing, stimulating ideas, and terrific performances, notably Hugh Grant playing a charming baddie, it’s a truly standout horror film.

When I wrote THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK several years back, one of the points I wanted to make in the novel is whether it’s a cult or a mainstream religion, religion itself is, well, terrifying if you think about it beyond the comforting assurances. Cosmic horror. The idea that there’s a supreme being judging everything you do and will burn you forever if you don’t love him enough or worship him the right way. The alternate idea that there’s nothing at all out there, no meaning or reason for being alive, and death is oblivion.

HERETIC cuts right to the heart of this existential dread (for another example of this, check out the Netflix series MIDNIGHT MASS). In the movie, two Mormon doorknockers, Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East), visit Mr. Reed (Grant), who has expressed interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They’re hoping for a convert, but he has something else in mind, a game of sorts about faith and belief. Soon, the two young women will find themselves trapped and forced to play.

If you’re super religious, here’s your trigger warning: Faith is discussed in many ways, but there is a strong point of view that is not flattering. That being said, HERETIC isn’t a religion-bashing film, not at all. The women, of course, also get their say, with the suggestion that God is not necessary for religion to be good. And the film is more about the questions than any answers.

As a horror film, the first act is almost perfect. The dread as the women start to realize things aren’t as they seem, the mounting tension as they try to talk themselves out of it, the calm and almost cheerful menace as Mr. Reed guides them without force to follow his script. In the second act, the horror steps up, but I didn’t find the third act, as the unknown becomes known, as strong, nor the final payoff. It’s pretty conventional and thwarted my hope the conflict would all boil down to a moral choice that provided a different answer to Mr. Reed’s explanation as to what the “one true religion” actually is.

Overall, I loved this highly thoughtful and provocative horror film and was glad I caught it in the theater. Definitely recommended.

Holy cow, I did not expect such a solid movie from a sequel of a middling horror film. SMILE 2 is terrific horror.

Full disclosure, I thought the first movie was, well, I didn’t think much of it. A fellow horror author advised me to check out the sequel, and he wasn’t wrong that it’s night and day with the two films. The sequel has a strong emotional anchor, strong themes, excellent horror, great acting, an entertaining inside look at what it’s like to be a pop star, and a killer ending.

The first film is basically about a curse where you and only you can see demonically smiling people who terrorize you until you die or witness a death, and then the curse passes on. In the second movie, it finds its way to a drug dealer who in turn passes it on to Skye Riley, a pop star (played to the hilt by actress/singer Naomi Scott), who finds herself in an escalating nightmare.

Skye has her own inner demons to contend with. She just got out of rehab and is trying to rebuild her career with a new tour. She decided to stop using after a car crash that killed her boyfriend, which still haunts her. This provides a strong emotional core for the film and a theme of wrestling with addiction, as the smiling curse similarly tries to break down her will and control.

SMILE 2 is a bit long for a horror movie at over 2 hours, but I enjoyed how it let itself breathe instead of throwing one horror setpiece jump scare (the jump scares are actually rare and used for maximum effect) after another at me. We get a lot of time seeing Skye doing her job–dealing with fans, practicing with backup dancers, and so on.

My main criticism is something the film actually overcame. I hate socially embarrassing ghosts, the kind of spirits that make you hallucinate so you freak out in front of a crowd or wind up doing something harmful. It delivers more anxiety than fun, and it doesn’t seem like a fair fight. But SMILE 2 overcame that usual objection, and I ran with it and enjoyed the ride until the killer ending.

Overall, I loved SMILE 2, it was a real surprise. Recommended.