20 Awesome Horror Movies In 2025 You Definitely Missed
11. The Ugly Stepsister
For anyone tired of Disney's never-ending conveyor-belt of live-action remakes of classic animations, The Ugly Stepsister is something of a deliciously twisted antidote.
The feature debut of Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt hearkens back to the dark heart of the Brothers Grimm's fierce interpretation of Cinderella, while centering the story not around Cinders but her downtrodden stepsister Elvira (Lea Myren).
Lea Myren gives a masterful performance in the central role, while Blichfeldt delivers an uncommonly confident debut which quite brilliantly depicts society's tendency to pit women against one another in the pursuit of beauty, security, and general contentment - as remains infuriatingly relevant today.
Thea Sofie Loch Næss is also perfectly cast as Agnes, this version's iteration of Cinderella, who is drawn in considerably more nuanced terms than ever before, only further feeding into the film's scathing indictment of patriarchy.
It's also worth pointing out that, as a body horror film, The Ugly Stepsister is nasty as all hell, taking a tale most folk only know in its sanitised form and making it stomach-churningly grotesque - and quite brilliantly so.