FAIRY tales have always had a dark side, but The Ugly Stepsister takes that idea, douses it in bleach, slaps on a tapeworm and drags it screaming into a grotesque new realm. Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt in her wildly confident feature debut, the film delivers a macabre, head-spinning take on the Cinderella mythos, one that is more scalpel than sparkle and more grotesque than glass slipper.
From the moment it premiered at Sundance’s Midnight Section, this Nordic horror oddity made it abundantly clear: this is not your typical rags-to-riches story. Instead, it is a rags-to-ravaged-body tale wrapped in couture and soaked in commentary. Through a distinctly Scandinavian lens (and with a touch of wicked humour), The Ugly Stepsister satirises beauty standards and societal pressure with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, a rusty one.
