Sightlines · reception
How The Ugly Stepsister was received
2025 · Emilie Blichfeldt · The Ugly Stepsister on Sightlines
The arc
It detonated on night one of Sundance 2025's Midnight section — gasps, walkouts, and a reported vomiting incident — and rather than cooling off, it was almost instantly embraced as the year's breakout feminist body horror, riding the post-Substance wave onto Shudder and into horror-fan hearts.
What’s debated
The recurring fight is whether it's a genuine original or 'the Norwegian Substance' — a knockoff riding Coralie Fargeat's coattails versus a film that arguably goes harder and cuts deeper than its comparison point.
Its footprint
It became instant shorthand for the women-led body-horror boom alongside The Substance, Titane, and Hatching, with its grisly literalisation of the Brothers Grimm detail everyone forgot — the stepsister mutilating her foot to fit the slipper — as its endlessly-screenshotted calling card.
Where it stands
An immediate Letterboxd horror darling and new-canon entry in feminist body horror — the 2025 Midnight title people dare each other to sit through.
Did you know? At the film's Sundance 2025 world premiere, multiple outlets reported that an audience member actually vomited during the screening — instant legend status for a Midnight movie.
Named by the director
- Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973) — Blichfeldt cited the beloved Czech Cinderella classic as an inspiration for grounding the fairy tale in a real, tactile world.
- Beauty and the Beast (Panna a netvor) (1978) — She named Juraj Herz's gothic Czech fairy-tale film among the 1970s Eastern European fantasy movies that shaped the film's realistic-enchanted look.
- Crash (1996) — Blichfeldt specifically cited Cronenberg's flesh-and-metal psychodrama as an inspiration for her 'beauty horror.'
- David Cronenberg — She repeatedly named Cronenberg's body horror as a formative influence on the film's approach to the flesh.