The Ugly Stepsister (2025) - dir. Emilie Blichfeldt
In the late 1800’s in Scandinavia, Elvira’s mother marries an old man for his money, but when he dies on their wedding night, it’s discovered he had married her for HER money. No one has any. So it falls to the braces-wearing, mousey girl to try and snag Prince Julian as a husband and save the family from destitution. To do so, her mother will subject Elvira to all manner of abuse, from withering critiques all the way to primitive cosmetic surgery, such as rhinoplasty performed with a chisel and without the benefit of anesthesia.
Mining much of the same thematic ground as last year’s The Substance, Blichfeldt looks at societal female beauty standards through a body-horror lens, and gives us the goriest possible version of the original rather violent Cinderella tale, from the point of view of the stepsister (obv). If you know it, you’ll know what’s eventually coming here. If not, I won’t spoil it, though it won’t be hard to guess.
Elvira goes through ever more gruesome steps in an attempt to outshine her beautiful stepsister, please her mother, and fulfill what she sees as her only useful role, eventually losing sight of any sanity, culminating in a squirm-inducing final sequence. While not on The Substance’s level of grand guignol camp, it’s still an effective set piece.
But, that’s somewhat part of the problem. It’s not Blichfeldt’s fault that this quite stylish and very well made period horror piece just happens to be treading similar ground as one of the most visually arresting and, frankly, ballsy films of the last 15 years. It’s not her fault that ‘dark reimaginings of classic fairy tales’ as a category has been overrun by low effort cash grabs like Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. This is neither low effort nor a meaningless search for profits. It’s just picked about the worst possible moment for a film with this particular take on this particular subject matter. It can only suffer by comparison to a superior (but markedly different) effort, or be dragged down by poor company.
It’a currently in limited release. It MIGHT be playing near you. If not, no worries. It’s a Shudder/IFC co-production, so it should hit streaming relatively soon.
This is quite a good film. Just not remotely a great one. It seems churlish to hold that against it.
3/5 examples of corsets being the LEAST ridiculous thing women have endured in the pursuit of financial stability.
