'The Ugly Stepsister' retells Cinderella with grotesque body horror and dark comedy

Emilie Blichfeldt’s feminist fairy tale “The Ugly Stepsister” reimagines Cinderella with twisted humor, flesh-splitting horror, and stunning visual design.

Lea Myren in a scene from "The Ugly Stepsister," released by IFC Films. Photo by Marcel Zyskind/IFC Films

By Anna Fadiah and Hayu Andini

During the opening scene of The Ugly Stepsister, the camera moves slowly across a banquet table left in shambles. Platters of food congeal under candlelight. Goblets are tipped, and an aging groom lies dead, his body slumped as if the wedding itself killed him. What follows is not a love story, but a tale of survival, deception, and disfigurement. Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, The Ugly Stepsister reimagines Cinderella through a feminist, flesh-ripping lens that questions beauty, power, and who gets to have a happy ending.

This bold and bloody Norwegian folk horror thrusts the viewer into a macabre fairy tale world where beauty is currency and the body is a battleground. The story centers on Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp), a widow left not with a fortune, but with a stunning stepdaughter named Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), and a desperate need for financial security. Her solution? Marry off her own awkward daughter Elvira (Lea Myren) to Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth), who is preparing to choose a bride at the grand royal ball.

There’s just one problem: Elvira is no fairytale princess. Her teeth are caged in braces, her frame unrefined, and her social skills nonexistent. But Rebekka, ruthless and delusional, believes transformation is possible — with the help of a plastic surgeon whose methods involve far more than botox and scalpels. Played with manic intensity by Adam Lundgren, this doctor brings hammers, chisels, and even tapeworms to the operating table.

As The Ugly Stepsister reimagines Cinderella with unsettling body horror, it also builds a deeply ironic atmosphere that mocks fairy tale tropes. With scenes that pivot from disgusting to dazzling, the film never lets viewers settle into comfort. We watch maggots dine on a corpse, only for them to later spin silk into a dress fit for a queen. It’s a visual tone poem that dances between nightmare and fantasy — a grotesque ballet wrapped in lace and gore.

What makes Blichfeldt’s film especially compelling is that it never lectures. Unlike other feminist horror, The Ugly Stepsister isn’t angry — it’s sly. It grins with bloodied teeth at the absurd lengths to which society demands transformation. Its horror is less about violence and more about the quiet, everyday monstrosities women endure in pursuit of being “beautiful enough.”

Elvira’s journey becomes the emotional core of the film. As her body is broken down and reassembled in increasingly extreme ways, Myren delivers a stunning performance that holds pain, hope, and humor in balance. We feel her yearning not just to be accepted by the prince, but to be seen, to be desired, to be valued. She doesn’t dream of escape — she dreams of validation. And she’s willing to suffer to get it.

Costume designer Manon Rasmussen’s work elevates the satire. The gowns worn to the ball are not just dresses — they are weapons, traps, disguises. Mothers parade their daughters like livestock at an auction, glittering in rhinestones and smiling through hunger pains. The camera doesn’t linger on beauty but exposes its cost: swollen limbs, corseted lungs, and mutilated feet.

Just as The Ugly Stepsister reimagines Cinderella with body horror, it also critiques the class politics embedded in fairy tales. The Prince is handsome, yes, but he is more symbol than character — a gatekeeper to a world where only the “chosen” are permitted comfort and wealth. Agnes, the classic Cinderella stand-in, is less central than expected. Her passive grace only underscores how Elvira, trying to fight her way into the spotlight, is the more relatable figure.

Behind the story lies a larger metaphor: the transformation from child to woman, from unseen to desired, from human to object. Elvira is literally carved into shape, and in doing so, the film asks: What are we willing to sacrifice for love? For attention? For survival?

The film also draws visual strength from cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, whose lens captures both the sensuality and the horror of each scene. From the slick glisten of surgical tools to the soft shimmer of enchanted fabrics, the movie is as gorgeous as it is gruesome. The lighting shifts between golden dreamscapes and nightmarish shadows, giving every frame the texture of a surreal painting.

With all its spectacle and symbolism, the most haunting moments in The Ugly Stepsister are the quiet ones. When Elvira stares into a mirror, half her face bruised and bandaged, we see the real horror: a girl who’s been told she is not enough — not pretty enough, not thin enough, not delicate enough — and who begins to believe it.

By the film’s end, the ball arrives. But this is no Disney finale. There are no slippers, no kisses, no happily-ever-afters. There is blood, desperation, and a woman who has given everything just for a chance to be chosen. Whether she wins the prince is almost irrelevant. What matters is the price she’s paid — and the question left hanging in the air: Was it worth it?

As The Ugly Stepsister reimagines Cinderella in this chilling, visceral way, it invites viewers to consider how fairy tales have shaped our notions of beauty, worth, and womanhood. And more importantly, it asks why those notions haven’t changed.

Emilie Blichfeldt’s debut is not just a horror film — it’s a manifesto stitched into the flesh of a fable. Funny, brutal, and unforgettable, The Ugly Stepsister reclaims a centuries-old tale and dresses it in something truly new: raw honesty, scar tissue, and a glittering sense of rebellion.

In a genre often dominated by scream queens and final girls, Elvira is something else entirely: a tragic heroine who isn’t trying to survive a monster, but to become one, just to be loved. That’s a twist no fairy godmother could fix.