The first trailer for body horror movie The Ugly Stepsister is here, featuring blood, gore, and cosmetic surgery in a nasty new take on Cinderella.
Written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt, the film follows Elvira (Lea Myren), the supposedly ugly stepsister who’ll do whatever it takes to be more beautiful than her stepsibling – and win the affection of the prince.
“Do you ever feel inferior? Unworthy? Ashamed? Rejected? Alone? Scared? Unloved? Invisible? Angry? Ugly?” on-screen text asks us as the trailer begins. We then see some of the daily humiliations Elvira suffers at the hands of her family, like food being thrown in her face while other diners laugh.
However, Elvira is willing to go to extreme lengths to change how others perceive her, including a brutal rhinoplasty, a gruesome procedure that seems to involve eyelashes being sewn onto her face, and taking a meat cleaver to her own foot so it fits inside the famous lost slipper from the original fairytale (although this one isn’t made of glass).
The Ugly Stepsister premiered at Sundance in January and an audience member reportedly vomited into the aisle during the screening. Despite that, it’s been a hit with critics and currently has a near-perfect score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Ugly Stepsister arrives in US theaters on April 18 and UK cinemas on April 25 before streaming on Shudder later this year. For more, fill out your watchlist with our guide to the other best upcoming horror movies on the way in 2025.
