The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)

I’m not very good at being patient. When The Ugly Stepsister turned up on Shudder a few months ago, I wanted to watch it immediately. Still, it seemed like the kind of thing I should save for the October Horror Movie Challenge, so here we are.

Part of the appeal is that I just love dark fairy tales. The Company of Wolves is still one of my favourite films, 40 years on, and any picture that promises to recapture some of that twisted magic is an easy sell. The press articles and social media posts about how disgusting The Ugly Stepsister is only made it even harder to resist. It’s always nice when a film isn’t afraid to make its audience squirm.

The Ugly Stepsister is currently streaming on Shudder in the UK.

Synopsis

Elvira’s mother, Rebekkah, marries an elderly widower for his money. When he abruptly dies on their wedding day, however, she learns that he was also broke and had believed she was wealthy. Now, Rebekkah is left with her late husband’s crumbling mansion, his debts, and his teenage daughter, Agnes.

Facing destitution, Rebekkah hatches a new plan: Elvira will marry the prince of the kingdom. The only barrier is that Elvira doesn’t look the part, at least in her mother’s opinion. Much to Agnes’s disgust, Rebekkah leaves her father unburied and invests the family’s meagre finances into extreme and terrifying beauty treatments for Elvira.

When the prince’s ball finally arrives, the transformed Elvira faces unexpected competition from Agnes, attending in the guise of “Cinderella”. And if that weren’t bad enough, Elvira’s agonising beauty treatments are beginning to have terrible side-effects.

General Thoughts

You probably don’t need me to tell you that The Ugly Stepsister is drawn from the nightmarish Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella. While this is a very free adaptation, using comparatively little of the original story, it does keep one key aspect of the resolution, involving feet, that will leave you wincing.

The Ugly Stepsister is really a film about impossible beauty standards and body dysmorphia. For the first few scenes, I wondered why they cast such a conventionally attractive actor in the role of Elvira. We’ve all seen films where everyone pretends a pretty girl is unattractive until she gets a crucial makeover, which is such a tired trope now. Here, however, it is far more knowing. The cosmetic procedures Elvira undergoes do change her appearance, but the fact that she wasn’t ugly to begin with is part of the horror.

As so many other reviews have said, The Ugly Stepsister is not a film for the squeamish. Elvira’s pursuit of beauty takes her to some very dark places. The archaic plastic surgery she undergoes is the stuff of nightmares, especially when she has her eyelashes enhanced. Anyone sensitive to eye trauma will probably have to step out of the room for a few minutes here.

The worst part, arguably, comes when Elvira swallows a tapeworm egg to help her lose weight. The payoff to this is especially grotesque, and reminded me of similarly traumatising scenes in Grady Hendrix’s My Best Friend’s Exorcism and Alison Rumfitt’s Brainwyrms.

The plastic surgeon who transforms Elvira has a “Beauty is Pain” poster in his operating theatre and dresses like a character from a Cronenberg film. As if these weren’t enough red flags, he anaesthetises her with cocaine and he snorts the leftovers. While he does also find a lovely gown for Elvira, he is more Dr Benway than fairy godmother.

Verdict

For what is ultimately a very dark film, The Ugly Stepsister is a lot of fun. It’s peppered with black comedy, and even the most grotesque scenes will get as many laughs as winces. The violence is closer to slapstick, in a very Sam Raimi way. Elvira, especially, is brutalised almost as much as Ash from the Evil Dead films, and Lea Myren, who plays Elvira, throws herself into the physicality of the role in a way that made me fear for her wellbeing.

The production design is both grim and lovely, although it’s also fairly limited in scope for what I assume are budgetary concerns. Even so, there are some fantastic locations, and the mansion where most of the film takes place has just the right gothic atmosphere. The prince’s ball is a glorious fever dream, equal parts Baz Luhrmann and Busby Berkeley. Elvira’s mental breakdown in the midst of this, as her hopes fall apart, is delightfully nightmarish as a result.

If you like your fairy tales to be more Angela Carter than Disney, and you’re in the mood to have your stomach churned, The Ugly Stepsister is a wonderfully horrible way to spend a couple of hours.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

Heretic (USA, 2024)
The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
The Monkey (USA, 2025)
Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
Hatching (Finland, 2022)
Abigail (USA, 2024)
Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
Pieces (Spain, 1982)
Infested (France, 2023)
Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
Enys Men (UK, 2022)
Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.