John’s Horror Corner: The Ugly Stepsister (2025; aka, Den stygge stesøsteren), the delightfully macabre Norwegian twist on the Cinderella fairy tale.

MY CALL: This was a good film! A lovely dark fantasy with great acting, writing, production, pacing… I enjoyed this a lot. But it’s not really for folks seeking a horror movie—even though it’s clearly not not horror. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Ugly Stepsister: If you like your dark fantasy with a taste (or more) of horror, consider The Company of Wolves (1984), Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Brothers Grimm (2005),  Viy: Forbidden Empire (2014), The Hallow (2015) or Gretel & Hansel (2020). For another interesting horror-adjacent Norwegian take on fantasy, try Trollhunter (2010).

Firstly, we must set expectations appropriately. If you seek a horror film, this isn’t it. This isn’t not horror by general classification; and horror fans should delight in this film. But this is truly a dark fantasy with a few horror elements. With that said, I really enjoyed this film!

Elvira (Lea Myren; Jenter) is introduced to her new home when her mother Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp; The Wave) marries a nobleman (Ralph Carlsson) at his estate… who then dies before tasting his own wedding cake.

It seems that both Rebekka and her abruptly late husband married each other based on lies each told of their wealth. When the truth is revealed that neither had money, the burden falls upon the homely Elvira to marry into wealth to protect her family. But rejoice, as the local prince has invited all noble virgins (which Elvira has been for not 24 hours) to a ball to select his wife! And among these invitations is Elvira’s gorgeous new stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss; Evil), who has been less than thrilled with the new living situation, and her new stepmother’s lack of compassion for her late father’s remains.

To prepare our less comely Elvira, her braces are removed with pliers, she gets a nose job with a hammer and chisel (the doctor is a DELIGHT), attends a catty finishing school, ingests a tapeworm to lose weight, and fake eyelashes are sewn into her eyelids. Many of these scenes induce winces and yelps from viewers, including myself. But the truly brutal scene is yet to come!

Meanwhile her stepsister is assisted by supernatural visions of her departed mother and magical silkworms that mend her dress for the ball. So, is our Elvira the Cinderella we expect? And since this is a horror-ish movie, what will come of that tapeworm? And the slipper! What of the slipper?

As we wait to learn the answers to these questions, we enjoy a well-produced, well-paced lead-in to the Prince’s ball, complete with all manner of noble disdain for the more “poor” nobles, toxic beautification practices, provocative dialogue cultivating tension between Elvira, Agnes and Rebekka… and let me say, Rebekka is quite the character. I won’t spoil anything, though. The entire cast and filmmaking team actually does a fantastic job, such that I would have just as much enjoyed this story without any horrific elements, told as a historical-fantasy drama series—something like The Serpent Queen (2022-2024).

Overall, there are a few truly brutal or wincingly gross scenes in this movie—and they hit pretty hard. This may not be a gory tour-de-force; really it’s more about the storytelling. But a well done, twisted fairy tale. Very well done. Director and writer Emilie Blichfeldt’s first feature film is as engaging as a dark fairy tale as it is an occasionally disgusting horror. And while I’m excited to see whatever she does next, I wonder if she has gross creative spins on other fairy tales in mind…