This week we review the dark and twisted retelling of the Cinderella fairy tale in The Ugly Stepsister.

As the name suggests, The Ugly Stepsister is a retelling of the Cinderella story from the ugly stepsister’s perspective. In this gritty realistic telling, it starts out with the marriage of Cinderella’s father and the revelation that both sides of the marriage are expecting great wealth from each other, but are actually poor. The step mother’s daughter Elvira dreams of marrying the Prince and is given a chance by being invited to his Ball. Her mother, knowing that a advantageous marriage is their only way out of poverty, plans on using her last money and her cunning to transform Elvira into a beauty. What follows is a series of visceral 19th century plastic surgeries, self inflicted illness, and a series of insults that turn Elvira into a pitiable and sympathetic protagonist.

The Ugly Stepsister is clever and a more complex retelling of the fairy tale that we all know and love. It’s a more realistic exploration of the power dynamics of money, privilege, and beauty. It tells two sides of the same fairytale, the original is really about overcoming poverty and class through natural beauty and magical helpers, this telling is about how despite class and access to money, you still need to overcome beauty standards. None of the characters are particularly “good”, including Cinderella. Each has their own motivations, and Elvira is essentially a pawn in her mother’s game. 

Max is going to argue that this isn’t a horror movie, but it undeniably is. This movie at its core is a body horror movie. It explores the brutal reshaping of Elvira’s body through mechanical and organic means. She will stop at nothing and sacrifice everything for her goal.

I thought it was really well done. It was clever, brutal, and at times even funny. It’s very similar in themes, but much more subtle than The Substance. 

9/10