A smart, bold, and visually rich work that both enchants and challenges.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 25, 2025

The Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt roasts conventional heroines and female beauty standards in this gruesome, hilarious reworking of Cinderella.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 24, 2025

Revels in so much twisted body horror and psychological torment that even the Brothers Grimm would cringe with disgust.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 24, 2025

This is a movie hyper-aware of the sexual and patriarchal imagery of Cinderella... Blichfeldt has made an elegant debut.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 24, 2025

To [director Emilie Blichfeldt’s] credit, she goes all in, and her audaciously militant vision suggests a director whose name is soon to be catnip for actors who like to pester their agents for challenging new projects.

| Apr 24, 2025

A twisted, messed-up fairy tale that truly sells the horror of the original story. Raunchy, gross, and oh so much fun.

| Apr 22, 2025

This bonkers Norwegian body-horror comedy is infused with snappy wit, swooning passion and gleefully hideous nastiness.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 21, 2025

A ferocious, unrelenting Cinderella story, rich in both style and substance.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 21, 2025

A dark alternate look at the Cinderella story.

| Original Score: B | Apr 21, 2025

It’s The Substance tied to a gothic nightmare. Lea Myren gave a lot of Mia Goth in Pearl vibes.

| Original Score: B | Apr 21, 2025

A provocative re-imagining of the classic fairy tale.

| Original Score: A- | Apr 21, 2025

A clever, wickedly funny, and nasty reinvention of the Cinderella myth, Emilie Blichfeldt’s feature debut is a stomach-churning spectacle and a scathing feminist satire that weaponizes the grotesque to critique the systems that prey on women.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 18, 2025

With style and attitude to spare, this imaginative Norwegian horror-comedy offers an audacious new perspective on the venerable Cinderella story.

| Apr 18, 2025

There’s a good deal of depth and nuance to these relationships as Blichfeldt uses them to illustrate how a society which makes women dependent on men magnifies ever petty disagreement and sets them at odds with one another.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 18, 2025

Everything that happens to Elvira — from a nose job to an extreme form of appetite suppression to eyelash extensions — are real procedures that are still practiced today. In a way this makes the horror more palpable, and more tragic.

| Apr 18, 2025

Bleak and blackly comedic, The Ugly Stepsister succeeds at making the viewer squirm in their seat while having a devilishly fun time doing so.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 18, 2025

Blichfeldt revels in the grotesque and gory, pushing things to their limit, with an unmistakable sense of glee.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 18, 2025

Blichfeldt lays [the] patriarchal misogyny [of fairy tales] bare. Because that's the true motivation behind such storybook romance: the desire to satisfy a man for survival in hopes he might satisfy you too.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 18, 2025

The contrast between fairy tale aesthetic and grim body horror is compelling, but the film seems to revel in the grotesquerie and gore more often than it presents incisive commentary.

| Original Score: 3.25/5 | Apr 18, 2025

“Ugly Stepsister” gets get very ugly but it’s a beautifully constructed nightmare bearing with a ‘70s moody Gothic look and a bizarro soundtrack.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 17, 2025