THE UGLY STEPSISTER (aka DEN STYGGE STESOSTEREN, 2025)

New streaming on Shudder from IFC Films!
Directed/Written by Emilie Blichfeldt.
Check out the trailer here!!

I understand that CINDERELLA was first a folk tale first conceived in Greece from ages ago, but most likely you know the story because it was made into a Disney movie in 1950. And since horror themed remakes are all the rage, one might think that a film like THE UGLY STEPSISTER would be some kind of rushed cash-grab akin to those Winnie the Pooh and Steamboat Willie films. It turns out that THE UGLY STEPSISTER Is actually an original dark twist on a classic fairy tale.

Rebekka played by Ane Dahl Torp is a gold-digging widower who catches the eye of a seemingly wealthy Lord. With her two daughters Elvira played by Lea Myren and Alma played by Flo Fagerli, Rebekka quickly married the lord and moves into his castle with the Lord’s daughter Agnes played by Thea Sofie Loch Næss. But soon Rebekka finds out that the Lord is broke and soon after the Lord dies, leaving her with all of his debts. With Prince Julian played by Isac Calmroth seeking to wed someone soon, Rebekka goes about making her daughter Elvira beautiful enough for him to marry, by any means necessary.

While the fairy tale of CINDERELLA was a tale of inner beauty despite one’s station in life, THE UGLY STEPSISTER tells the same type of Cinderella tale from a different perspective, that of Elvira’s. By shifting the perspective, we see Elvira in a newer, more positive light. So when she arrives at the castle, it is Agnes who makes Elvira feel unwelcome and inferior. And therefore, we feel for Elvira where as in the original fairy tale, she is simply a despicable character in the way of Cinderella’s aspirations to marry the Prince. Elvira plays that same role, but by taking a few steps back from the story and starting a bit further back in time, it shifts the way you see things.

That’s not to say Elvira turns out to be a likable character. Once the process of her beautification begins, we are shown a much more cruel and selfish side to Elvira. But the thing is, you can’t really feel for Agnes in this story either because of the way she treated Elvira at the beginning of the film. This makes for a conundrum as there turns out to be no likable characters to be found in THE UGLY STEPSISTER. I’m sure in an Americanized version of the story, Agnes would have been made more pure, but this Norwegian film makes things more complicated than that, giving a rather critical slant towards both of the women who are basically seeking to marry the prince for his money and stature.

This shift proves to make this film a battle between the two women and one of them, Elvira, will stop at nothing, even utterly destroying her own body in the process to get what she wants. In comes the body horror and man, is this film filled to the gullet with it. While some of the concepts have been addressed before in terms of the barbaric ancient medicine used to strive for ultimate beauty, never has it been presented in a more disgusting and despicable way. By the final reel, the lengths Elvira goes to get her man is absolutely unimaginable. There is one sequence towards the end, where Elvira attempts to undo what has been done to her, that you simply can’t unsee. It is heinous and nauseating and tragic all at once. It’s the type of sequence that will make you leap from your chair and walk it off after seeing it. No details. I don’t want to spoil it. But it is that bad which, for me and my fellow gorehounds out there, is so, so good.

Lea Myren does a fantastic job of playing Elvira. She presents as sympathetic. An underdog when we first meet her. But she shifts from unlikely hero to monster with ease. It’s a physically demanding performance—one that requires a lot of spunk and selflessness to get right. It’s amazing seeing this transformation from maiden to monster.

It makes me wonder what writer/ director Emilie Blichfeldt was trying to say with THE UGLY STEPSISTER. I believe it may be a moral story about aspiring towards the wrong kind of goals. Or maybe it’s about the least of two evils coming out in top. Or most likely it is just a clever and painfully visceral way of re-telling an age-old story in the freshest of ways.

THE UGLY STEPSITER is often excessively decadent—disgustingly and aggressively so. The level of extravagance is bent and twisted to show the uglier side of this lavish and proper life. Seeing the physical training and medical torture Elivra goes through to simply gain power and fortune truly highlights how some people can be overcome with such temptations. Seeing Rebekka toss all concern for the well being of her daughter for riches is not unlike the beauty pageant mom’s or reality star wannabes we see in today’s culture. There is an ugliness to this movie that is overwhelming at times, from the heinous body horror to simply the way people treat one another. It’s quite the comment on how little some can care about others when fame is on the line.

In the end, THE UGLY STEPSISTER is a grotesque mirror held up to the human condition, lampooning our obsession with fame and fortune in the most surreal and disgusting of ways. There are scenes of body horror that are surely going to nauseate, but the true horror in THE UGLY STEPSISTER lay in the multiple characters who think so much about themselves that it rots them from the inside.

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Music Written by Tim Heidecker
Music & Arrangement by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy https://youtu.be/PDySbxQgZMg
(I do not own this music)