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The Ugly Stepsister

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The Ugly Stepsister
Theatrical release poster
NorwegianDen Stygge Stesøsteren
Directed byEmilie Blichfeldt [no]
Screenplay byEmilie Blichfeldt
Based on"Aschenputtel"
by the Brothers Grimm[a]
Produced byMaria Ekerhovd [no]
Starring
CinematographyMarcel Zyskind [de]
Edited byOlivia Neergaard-Holm
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed byScanbox Entertainment [sv]
Release dates
  • 23 January 2025 (2025-01-23) (Sundance)
  • 7 March 2025 (2025-03-07) (Norway)
  • 28 May 2025 (2025-05-28) (Denmark)
  • 13 June 2025 (2025-06-13) (Sweden)
Running time
105 minutes
Countries
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Sweden
  • Denmark
LanguagesNorwegian
Polish
Danish
Swedish
Box office$901,247[2]

The Ugly Stepsister (Norwegian: Den Stygge Stesøsteren) is a 2025 satirical[3][4] dark comedy[5] body horror[6][7] film written and directed by Emilie Blichfeldt (in her directorial debut). The film, starring Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, and Flo Fagerli, making use of the motif of the fairy tale "Cinderella", retells a twisted story of Elvira, who competes against her beautiful stepsister in a bloody battle for beauty. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 23 January 2025, where it opened the Midnight Section.[8][9]

An international co-production between Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Denmark, it was showcased as part of the Panorama at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on 16 February 2025, after its premiere at Sundance.[10] The film was released in Norwegian theaters on 7 March 2025 by Scanbox Entertainment [sv],[11] and is scheduled to be theatrically released in Denmark on 28 May 2025[12] and in Sweden on 13 June 2025.[13]

Plot

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A widow named Rebekka has two daughters named Elvira and Alma; an older widower named Otto has one daughter named Agnes. Debt-ridden and each mistaking the other to have money, Otto and Rebekkah marry and blend their families. Rebekka's hopes of wealth and privilege are dashed when on her wedding night, Otto dies and the family learns that he is actually penniless. Agnes behaves haughtily towards her stepmother and two stepsisters for their low status.

To improve their household finances, Rebekka plans to marry off Elvira, her eldest daughter, to Prince Julian. While Elvira dreams of marrying the shallow Prince, Rebekka knows her daughter is considered conventionally ugly and has little chance of winning him over, especially if pitted against Agnes.

To improve her looks, Rebekka subjects Elvira to a series of painful and primitive cosmetic surgeries. Elvira also swallows a tapeworm egg to lose weight and made to take finishing lessons. The pressure causes Elvira's initial admiration for her stepsister to turn to resentment, as she feels that Agnes did not have to work for her looks or talent. One night, Elvira discovers Agnes having sex with Isak, a stable man, and reports it to Rebekka. Disgusted, Rebekka makes Agnes a servant, and the family starts calling her Cinderella. As the royal ball approaches, Elvira becomes malnourished and her hair starts falling out in clumps.

During a dress fitting with her mother, the dress seller gives Elvira a wig and gown. He notices Agnes' beauty and makes inappropriate advances on her. She spits on him and on the floor in disgust, which Rebekka instructs her to clean up. When they return, Elvira sees Agnes with a ball gown and angrily destroys it. Meanwhile, Alma is frightened when she has her first period that night. Later, Agnes cries over her father's grave. She has a vision of her biological mother, who gives her a beautiful pair of shoes and warns her that the carriage turns back into a pumpkin by midnight. Silkworms fix Agnes' torn gown.

At the ball, Elvira attracts Prince Julian's interest, but his attention is quickly stolen by a veiled Agnes. Elvira escapes to another room and vomits up tapeworm eggs. Later, both women return home. Aware that Agnes accidentally left behind a slipper that Julian will use to identify his dream woman, Elvira forces Agnes to hand over the other shoe. When she discovers that her feet are too large for the slippers, Elvira begins severing her toes. She is found by Rebekka and Alma, the latter of whom is horrified when Rebekka calmly sedates Elvira and completes the task.

The next morning, a wounded Elvira hears the trumpets announcing the Prince's arrival. She crawls on the floor, unable to walk, and falls down a flight of stairs, breaking her nose and chipping her tooth. She discovers that Agnes and the Prince have successfully found one another, making her efforts wasted.

Defeated, Elvira listens to Alma, takes an antidote and vomits up a large tapeworm. The sisters leave their mother so they can live free of her influence, while Rebekka begins seducing a man she met at the ball.

In a post-credits scene, it is revealed that Otto's rotting corpse remains in his house because Rebekka had neglected to bury him and spent what remained of her own money to pay for Elvira's painful operations.

Cast

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Production

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Writer and director Emilie Blichfeldt [no] began developing The Ugly Stepsister while working on her thesis project at Norwegian Film School.[14][15] Initially following a woman with a "talking vulva that tells her she's lonely", Blichfeldt took influence from "Aschenputtel", the Brothers Grimm's version of the Cinderella story, and reimagined the character to be one of Cinderella's stepsisters cutting off her toes to fit in the glass slipper.[16][14] She was unfamiliar with the body horror genre until she watched David Cronenberg's 1996 film Crash in 2015, which led her to "a deep dive into anything Cronenberg" and discovering the filmographies of Italian film directors Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.[1][16] Their films, along with Julia Ducournau's Raw (2016), led her to utilize body horror for the film.[16][14] The script was informed by Blichfeldt's "own struggles with body image", which she intended to "provoke both empathy and discomfort and inspire [the film's] audience to reflect upon their perceptions of, and relationship to, beauty."[17]

When she was growing up, Blichfeldt regularly watched the Norwegian dub of the "camp" film Three Wishes for Cinderella, which she credited as an influence "to create a timeless, once-upon-a-time feeling" for The Ugly Stepsister's visual style.[18] Walerian Borowczyk, a Polish director known for producing pornographic films, was a "surprising" influence for Blichfeldt, who resonated with the way he filmed "natural, beautiful bod[ies]" and the "cheeky, sexy grotesqueness" of his work.[14]

The film was produced by Maria Ekerhovd [no] of Mer Film [no], in co-production with Lizette Jonjic, Zentropa Sweden, Mariusz Włodarski, Lava Films and Theis Nørgaard, Motor, with the support from the Norwegian Film Institute, the Polish Production Incentive and the Polish Film Institute, the Swedish Film Institute, the Danish Film Institute, Eurimages, DR, the Nordic Council Film Prize, and the Western Norwegian Film Center [no; Vestnorsk filmsenter]. It is distributed by Scanbox Entertainment [sv], whereas international sales rights are with Memento International.[19][20]

The crew of the film consisted of costume designer Manon Rasmussen, cinematographer Marcel Zyskind [de], editor Border Olivia Neergaard-Holm, visual effects supervisor Peter Hjort, and visual effects make-up artist Thomas Foldberg.[17]

Release

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The Ugly Stepsister premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 23 January 2025 in the Midnight Section,[9] and screened in the Panorama section of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on 16 February 2025.[21][22][23]

Shudder, an American over-the-top subscription video-on-demand service, acquired the distribution rights for North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand in December 2024.[17] The film has also been sold by Memento to ESC FIlms Capelight, Beta Film, Lev Cinema, ADS, Cay Films, Cine Canibal, New Select, House of M, PT Falcon, Estin Film, and Vendetta Filmes.[15]

The film was released in Norwegian cinemas on 7 March 2025 by Scanbox.[11]

The film was released in US cinemas on 18 April 2025 by IFC Films.

Reception

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On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of 113 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Taking a hammer and chisel to a quintessential fairy tale, The Ugly Stepsister's masterful application of gore and subversion are the stuff that nightmares are made of."[24] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[25]

Accolades

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Award Date Category Recipient Result Ref.
Berlin International Film Festival 23 February 2025 Panorama Audience Award for Best Feature Film Emilie Blichfeldt Nominated [26]
Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 11 July 2025 Best Picture The Ugly Stepsister Won [27]

Notes

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  1. ^ Although the Grimms are not the original authors of "Cinderella", their version of the tale, "Aschenputtel" (German for "Little Ash Girl"), notably includes graphic elements not featured in other variants, such as Cinderella's stepsisters mutilating their feet to fit into the slipper, which served as inspiration for The Ugly Stepsister.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b Roxborough, Scott (26 January 2025). "'Ugly Stepsister' Director on How She Worked to "Get the Gore Right"". The Hollywood Reporter. Penske Media Corporation. Archived from the original on 3 April 2025. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  2. ^ "The Ugly Stepsister". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 20 May 2025.
  3. ^ Puchko, Kristy (18 April 2025). "'The Ugly Stepsister' review: What if 'Wicked' and 'The Substance' had a grubby baby?". Mashable. Retrieved 3 June 2025.
  4. ^ "Impressively nasty body horror puts The Ugly Stepsister through a beautification gauntlet". AV Club. Retrieved 3 June 2025.
  5. ^ Kramer, Gary M. (18 April 2025). ""The Ugly Stepsister" rewrites "Cinderella" as a grotesque and darkly funny feminist fable". Salon. Retrieved 3 June 2025.
  6. ^ "Cinderella Was Always a Body-Horror Story". 24 January 2025. Archived from the original on 25 January 2025. Retrieved 11 April 2025.
  7. ^ "The Ugly Stepsister review: A Cinderella horror story". 4 February 2025. Archived from the original on 12 February 2025. Retrieved 11 April 2025.
  8. ^ Patten, Dominic; D'Alessandro, Anthony (11 December 2024). "Sundance 2025: JLo, Sly Stone, Putin, Ayo Edebiri, André Holland, & Ex-NZ PM Jacinda Ardern Films Among Park City Festival Offerings". Deadline. Archived from the original on 23 January 2025. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
  9. ^ a b "The Ugly Stepsister". Sundance Film Festival. 12 December 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  10. ^ Economou, Vassilis (17 December 2024). "The Berlinale announces the first Berlinale Special, Panorama and Generation titles". Cineuropa. Archived from the original on 24 December 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  11. ^ a b "The Ugly Stepsister is Invited to Berlin". Norwegian Film Institute. 17 December 2024. Archived from the original on 17 December 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  12. ^ Jorgensen, Niels Jakob Kyhl (9 May 2025). "Den stygge stedsøster". Filmmagasinet Ekko [da] (in Danish). Archived from the original on 25 January 2025. Retrieved 14 May 2025.
  13. ^ Kardelo, Alexander (1 April 2025). "En av årets mest omtalade skräckfilmer klar för svenska biodukar i sommar". MovieZine (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 1 April 2025. Retrieved 14 May 2025.
  14. ^ a b c d Scott, Lyvie (9 May 2025). "How The Ugly Stepsister Found Beauty In The Grotesque". Inverse. Bustle Digital Group. Archived from the original on 11 May 2025. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  15. ^ a b Alex Ritman (10 February 2025). "Sundance Horror 'The Ugly Stepsister' Sells Wide for Memento (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Archived from the original on 11 February 2025. Retrieved 12 February 2025.
  16. ^ a b c Schimkowitz, Matt (21 April 2025). "The Ugly Stepsister director Emilie Blichfeldt on body horror, fairy tales, and David Cronenberg". The A.V. Club. Paste Media Group. Archived from the original on 8 May 2025. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  17. ^ a b c Elsa Keslassy (11 December 2024). "Shudder Buys 'The Ugly Stepsister' Ahead of Sundance Premiere as Midnight Section Opener (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Archived from the original on 25 December 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  18. ^ Feidberg, Isaac (17 April 2025). "The Dream Within the Fairy Tale: Emilie Blichfeldt on "The Ugly Stepsister"". RogerEbert.com. Archived from the original on 19 April 2025. Retrieved 13 May 2025.
  19. ^ "Projektbeskrivning" [Project description]. Film Väst (in Swedish). 12 September 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  20. ^ "The Ugly Stepsister, Feature Film: 2024-2025 – Comedy, Horror, Denmark, Norway, Poland". Crew United. 5 December 2024. Archived from the original on 25 December 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  21. ^ Ntim, Zac (17 December 2024). "Berlin Film Festival: Michel Gondry & Ira Sachs Among Names Set For Competition Sidebars". Deadline. Archived from the original on 17 December 2024. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
  22. ^ Elsa Keslassy (17 December 2024). "Berlin Film Festival Unveils Panorama Lineup With New Movies by Denis Côté and Ira Sachs; Berlinale Special Titles Include 'Islands,' 'Honey Bunch' and 'Köln 75'". Variety. Archived from the original on 17 December 2024. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
  23. ^ "The Ugly Stepsister". Berlinale. 4 February 2025. Retrieved 5 February 2025.
  24. ^ "The Ugly Stepsister". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 22 June 2025. Edit this at Wikidata
  25. ^ "The Ugly Stepsister". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 10 May 2025.
  26. ^ Rosser, Michael (17 December 2024). "Berlin film festival first wave includes Denis Cote, Ira Sachs titles". ScreenDaily. Archived from the original on 24 December 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
  27. ^ Lee Joo-in (11 July 2025). "제29회 부천국제판타스틱영화제 폐막…작품상 바디호러 '어글리 시스터'" [The 29th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival closes… Best Picture Body Horror ‘Ugly Sister’]. Daily Sports (in Korean). Naver. Retrieved 11 July 2025.
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