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Stars: Lea Myren, Ane Dahl Torp, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Flo Fagerli, Isac Calmroth, Malte Gårdinger, Ralph Carlsson | Written and Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt

Making her feature debut, Norwegian writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt serves up this body horror version of the Cinderella story, presented from the perspective of the titular ugly stepsibling. As such, it’s an inspired twist, taking a razor-sharp scalpel to impossible beauty standards and delivering buckets of vomit-worthy gore moments.

Set in a Scandinavian fairy-tale land, The Ugly Stepsister‘s story centres on plump, unattractive Elvira (Lea Myren), who arrives at the mansion owned by her mother’s new husband, only for him to immediately drop dead during their first family meal together. With her mother, Rebekka (Agnieszka Zulewska), now in charge, the stepfather’s beautiful daughter Agnes (the splendidly named Thea Sofie Loch Næss), is quickly reduced to the status of general servant and nicknamed Cinderella.

Lea Myren as Elvira in The Ugly Stepsister. Photo credit: Lukasz Bak. Courtesy of IFC Films / Vertigo Releasing

In a dark, twisted re-telling of Cinderella, Norwegian director Blichfeldt’s satiric The Ugly Stepsister turns things around to tell the story from the view point of a stepsister. This Polish-shot period-film version of the classic fairy tale is a darkly comic body-horror film, which is more Brothers Grimm than either Disney or the familiar Charles Perrault fairy tale. Cinderella is a folk story that appears in various forms in numerous cultures around the world but this version turns much of our expectations on their heads. The retelling in The Ugly Stepsister puts a darkly comic twist on it by focusing on the stepsister, making it more a commentary on standards for beauty, and the price that might be paid to achieve it. Rather than romantic fantasy, The Ugly Stepsister takes a...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published during the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. “The Ugly Stepsister” opens in theaters Friday, April 18.

It’s tough times out there for a feminist body horror fairy tale in a newly post-“Substance” filmmaking world. Coralie Fargeat’s gory parable of the abyss of self-loathing at the center of women’s society-stoked quest for beauty upped the stakes in terms of the genre’s potential cultural reach.

But female genre directors have been responding to impossible, often body-contorting standards of beauty for decades. Enter Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt, who makes her gruesome entrée into that movement with her playfully grotesque feature debut “The Ugly Stepsister.” One character’s name being Sophie von Kronenberg in this stylized gothic retelling of the Grimm Brothers’ spin on Cinderella should offer enough portent for where the film is heading in all its nose-breaking, flesh-eating, tapeworm-infested grandeur.

“The Ugly Stepsister...

The Ugly Stepsister gets its first trailer, previewing the twisted new take on Cinderella with a glowing score on Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, the upcoming body horror film follows Lea Myren's Elvira, a young woman who begins to take drastic measures to alter her appearance as she competes against her beautiful stepsister in a realm where looks are everything. Despite making an audience member vomit at its Sundance premiere earlier this year due to a few extremely graphic scenes, The Ugly Stepsister reviews have been generally glowing from critics.

Ahead of the film's theatrical release on April 18, Shudder now releases the full trailer for The Ugly Stepsister, providing a new look at some of the movie's stomach-turning body horror sequences. The trailer features a new look at the movie's depiction of a brutal rhinoplasty procedure, as well as another sequence in which a character has new eyelashes sewn in.

A scene from the Swedish TV mini-series “The Fighter.” Courtesy of MHz Choice

“The Fighter” (originally titled “Lea”) is a dark Swedish TV miniseries covering the ordeal of its eponymous boxer (Madeleine Martin) as she struggles to succeed in an environment in which her ring opponents are the least challenging obstacles to winning a championship. As the film opens, she’s in her first match after a two-year suspension for drug allegations that may have been unwarranted. Adrian (Joel Spira), her ex-hubby and father of their young son, is the sort of screw-up who is easy prey for the abundance of crime bosses who sully the sport. He’s in deep to Balthazar (Emil Almen), a vicious jerk who deals drugs, fixes fights and pounces on whatever sleazy opportunity may arise, supported by thugs to impose his will on the unwilling. Adrian’s problems are highly contagious.

Lea had been...

‘The Ugly Stepsister’ is a comedy horror film directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, reimagining the Cinderella tale as a dark, bloody rivalry between Elvira and her stepsister. Starring Lea Myren and Thea Sofie Loch Næss, it premieres on January 23, 2025, at Sundance’s Midnight Section and will also appear at the Berlin Film Festival.

The movie, an international production, hits Norwegian theaters on March 7, 2025. In a dark and twisted version of Cinderella, Elvira is determined to outshine her beautiful stepsister and win the prince’s attention, no matter the cost.

The story explores her obsession with beauty, featuring tapeworms, decaying bodies, and gruesome 19th-century surgeries. Combining humor and horror, the film critiques the beauty industry’s pressures while evoking sympathy for Elvira, who is caught in her mother’s extreme makeover schemes in her quest for love and acceptance.

You can check out the movie’s first official stills below:

The film...

Rating: 2.5/5.0

Chicago – Movie trilogies often are judged on the strength of their middle chapters. The “Star Wars” franchise wouldn’t have been continually embraced by new generations if “The Empire Strikes Back” hadn’t deepened the characters to such an extent that they became more than mere Jungian archetypes. If “Empire” jettisoned the franchise’s potential, “Attack of the Clones” brought it in for a crash landing.

“The Girl Who Played With Fire” is nowhere near the disaster of “Clones,” but considering the international appeal of its source material, the film is a definite letdown. It’s based on the second installment of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s “Millennium Trilogy,” which was published posthumously, and gained tremendous popularity with readers worldwide. Larsson was also a journalist with strong antifascist beliefs, and worked at a small publication not unlike the one in his book series. His crime dramas follow an investigative journalist,...

After several decades in front of the camera, August is making her directorial debut with non-other than Noomi Rapace - one of Europe's best actresses who might be best known for her Millennium trilogy, but those who experienced the 2007 film Daisy Diamond know exactly how resilient and raw this actress can be. She is also working with a text that won top literary awards. - #95. Svinalängorna Director: Pernilla AugustWriter(s): August and Lolita RayProducers: Ralph Carlsson and Helena DanielssonDistributor: Rights Available. The Gist: Based on Susanna Alakoski's August-prize winning novel, Svinalängorna tells of Leena, a 34 year-old woman, living in Stockholm with her husband and two daughters. When she receives a phone call informing her of her mother's death in Ystad, her troubled past as a young girl, raised by Finnish/Swedish alcoholic parents, comes back to haunt her. Cast: Noomi Rapace, Ville Virtanen and...