Sundance ’25: ‘THE UGLY STEPSISTER’ Gives Cinderella Story a Gruesome Facelift

The Ugly Stepsister has already earned a reputation around Park City as the horror movie in this year’s Midnight section—the one that made an audience member puke in the aisle. For horror enthusiasts, this is the theatrical equivalent of a Michelin star. You must see this movie, now etched in regurgitation. For the first 80 or so minutes of Emilie Kristine Blichfeldt’s no-holds-barred retelling of Cinderella, I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. And then, the reason someone yakked became grotesquely clear.

Although I could happily go the rest of my life without seeing another live-action adaptation of a Disney movie, The Ugly Stepsister is anything but a family-friendly fable of obscured identity, singing mice, and charmed romance. Replacing that cutesy fairytale come-up is a nasty saga of self-induced body horror, one that, much like last year’s The Substance, examines the lengths women will go to in order to be chosen by men. Lea Myren stars as Elvira, the titular ugly stepsister, but she’s not the one-dimensional caricature of unwarranted entitlement audiences are familiar with.

We meet Elvira sporting a grotesque mouthful of braces—the first of many of her heartless mother’s attempts to put lipstick on a proverbial pig. Her gawking, awkward smile and daydreamy aloofness paint a delicate picture of Elvira. She’s only a girl playing Princess and Prince Charming make-believe, but with much higher stakes. Myren plays her with a well-tuned degree of jejune innocence, paired with an overbearing desperation for acceptance. From her mother. From her finishing school instructors. From any male who happens upon her. This toxic mix of a need to please others and a willingness to suffer for that cause opens her up to unspeakable body horrors. Her femininity is framed as a form of self-destruction—a willingness to endure unspeakable agony in pursuit of beauty.

When Elvira’s mother’s arranged marriage to an ostensibly wealthy count swiftly ends—his demise brought on by an ill-fated slice of cake—they realize their golden goose was, in fact, a pumpkin. The count, it turns out, was as penniless as they are. In a last-ditch effort to enrich the family before they wind up destitute, Elvira embarks on a desperate bid to wed the kingdom’s bachelor prince. This added pressure only amplifies the horrors she and her all-too-willing mother will inflict upon Elvira. From reshaping her nose with a hammer and chisel to an insectile weight loss technique, the lengths Elvira is willing to go are increasingly, stomach-turningly horrifying. The squeamish need not apply, lest they also plan to empty their stomachs.

Blichfeldt’s debut film playfully weaves fantastical, dreamlike sequences against the brutal reality Elvira finds herself in—an unsettling contrast that makes her suffering all the more visceral. The juxtaposition of fairytale whimsy and grotesque body horror creates a nightmarish fable about the violence of beauty standards, each magical vision undercut by the relentless destruction of Elvira’s body. A confident, stomach-churning debut, The Ugly Stepsister cements Blichfeldt as a thrilling new voice in horror and delivers a breakout performance from Lea Myren.