The Ugly Stepsister
Shudder | Release Date: April 18, 2025 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisApr 17, 2025
The movie, adapted by the Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt from the Cinderella story, is the opposite of didactic: Slyly funny and visually captivating (the luscious cinematography is by Marcel Zyskind), its scenes move with ease from gross to gorgeous, and from grotesque to magical. Read full review
86
Paste MagazineJim VorelJan 24, 2025
Feverishly funny, gruesomely gross and unrelenting in its satirical critique of both beauty standards and the designation of a cinematic “protagonist,” director Emilie Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister is a film that will have jaws dropping at Sundance this year. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyApr 24, 2025
The Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt roasts conventional heroines and female beauty standards in this gruesome, hilarious reworking of Cinderella. Read full review
80
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 26, 2025
Contrasting how her female characters feel with the expectations men put on them, Blichfeldt makes clear that impossible beauty standards are the unfairest of them all, whether in the real world or this twisted fictional kingdom. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJan 26, 2025
We know, of course, that none of this will end well, and Blichfeldt gives us every gnarly, disgusting consequence in agonizing detail, be it vomit, blood, severed body parts, or some combination thereof. Nevertheless, the film is beautiful in its own way, like a Scandinavian fairy-tale riff on Italian giallo, narratively disquieting but cinematically exhilarating. Read full review
80
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiJan 26, 2025
Blichfeldt pulls out all the stops for this film, giving us a cinematic experience that is ripe with depth and concise commentary, all wrapped in a grisly fairy tale world that is as immersive as it is intense Read full review
80
ColliderTherese LacsonJan 26, 2025
Emilie Blichfeldt combines the classic grotesque horror often associated with Grimm fairytales and injects new life into it with her feminist message and new perspective. Coupled with strong performances — with special praise for lead Lea Myren — this horror flick is well worth a watch. Just maybe don't watch it after a meal! Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyApr 18, 2025
Blichfieldt’s “burn it all down” approach creates turbulence and upset while walking over very well-trod ground. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 21, 2025
Writer-director Blichfeldt’s debut feature is more cringe-worthy than laugh-out-loud funny. She picked obvious targets. But there’s a lot to be said for having the audicity to “go there” and go gory when you’re sending up the ugly open secret that “Beauty is pain,” that it’s a trap and that it’s well past time to stop taking fairy tales with princes and “Sleeping Beauties” at “children’s story” face value. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineMarshall ShafferFeb 19, 2025
Emilie Blichfeldt knows the exact point of queasiness to which she can push an audience and gradually tests how much further she can move that mark with each successive scene. Read full review
75
The PlaylistAnkit JhunjhunwalaFeb 3, 2025
Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt’s horror dramedy is largely entertaining on its own terms, even for viewers unwilling to dig deeper. Its modernist meta-textual caustic sting? You can take it or leave it. But it will richly reward those in tune with Blichfeldt’s gleeful bastardization of fairytale tropes. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubJacob OllerJan 26, 2025
Blichfeldt’s film offers a R-rated counterpoint better than most “faithful” fairy tale adaptations. Read full review
75
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 26, 2025
While Blichfeldt might revel in the gruesomeness a touch too much, this is a well-crafted debut––commendable in the unexpected, gnarled ways it finds sympathy with the downcast and dismissed. Read full review
70
TheWrapChase HutchinsonJan 26, 2025
It’s far from perfect and is at its brutal best in the final stretch, though it manages to get there in mostly one piece — even when its characters do not. Read full review
70
IGNKatie RifeJan 26, 2025
The Ugly Stepsister’s torture-porn take on a classic fairy tale is told from a teenager’s point of view, but the grotesque elements are appropriate for gorehounds of all ages. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeJan 26, 2025
Blichfedlt’s aesthetic ambition — hyper-pop prevails here — and a committed performance from Les Myren as the titular stepsister help enliven a film that, at times, is weighed down by its more farcical antics. Read full review
67
IndieWireRyan LattanzioJan 26, 2025
Here’s a classic story outfitted into something perhaps more bracingly modern — even if its storytelling techniques, female body horror aside, largely are traditional. Read full review
63
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 5, 2025
The Ugly Stepsister has macabre fun with what some women will do to make a shoe fit. It’s The Substance by way of the Brothers Grimm. Read full review
60
The TimesKevin MaherApr 25, 2025
Fans are calling this the Brothers Grimm meets The Substance but it’s better than that sounds. And certainly harder to watch. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 23, 2025
Blichfeldt has made an elegant debut. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 26, 2025
This twisted fable suggests a filmmaker who gleefully goes to extremes, but the story’s shocks and stomach-churning gags prove more memorable than the underlying observations about the way in which women are pitted against one another in a patriarchal society. Read full review
60
The Daily BeastNick SchagerJan 24, 2025
A rather obvious and pedestrian lesson, if one that’s embellished with a few memorably macabre sights. Read full review
40
Little White LiesHannah StrongApr 23, 2025
The film’s creative gore alone cannot paper over the ultimate flimsiness of Blichfeldt’s concept, which amounts to an adolescent scrawl of fairytale satire, somehow less interesting and transgressive than Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’ which predates it by 46 years. Read full review
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