I Think This Is The Best Horror Movie of 2025 (And It’s Not Even Close)

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Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, The Ugly Stepsister is a Norwegian film that takes a story we’ve known since childhood and twists it into something disturbingly, skin-crawlingly intimate. From the very first frame, it pulls you in with lush, period-drama elegance before sinking its claws deep with grotesque body horror.

Why The Ugly Stepsister Earns the Crown for Best Horror of 2025 (So far)

The premise of the film is deceptively simple. Cinderella’s ugly stepsister, Elvira (Lea Myren), is in love with the prince and will do anything to have him. She decides, at the urging of her mother (Ane Dahl Torp), to go through a “makeover” that would help her win his heart. This is, of course, reminiscent of the million and one films where the female lead goes through a transformation that nearly unfailingly endears her to the heart of the male lead. Except here, the transformation is visceral, sewing away at eyelids and wrenching worms out of guts to enforce society’s beauty standards.

With The Ugly Stepsister, Blichfeldt crafts a Cinderella story filtered through the lens of Cronenbergian body horror, turning every act of beauty transformation into something monstrous. The film’s most nauseatingly unforgettable moments never feature gore for gore’s sake. They’re loaded with commentary on the absurd, damaging lengths society pushes people toward in pursuit of perfection. The performances are a big part of why it works. Myren, playing the titular and quintessential ugly stepsister, Elvira, shows the aching vulnerability beneath the character’s growing madness, and the rest of the cast match her beat for beat. Every sneer from the stepmother feels like it could cut flesh. Every glance from Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) carries the weight of judgment disguised as charm. The costumes and set design lull you into thinking you’re watching a traditional period drama, but the longer you stay, the more everything rots at the edges. Silk turns to stained fabric, candlelit halls start to feel suffocating, and the camera lingers just a little too long on things you wish you hadn’t noticed.

It’s also a film that knows how to play with tone. One minute you’re laughing nervously at an absurd bit of dark humor, and the next, you’re clenching your jaw as the score builds into something shrill and nightmarish. The music, pulsating and shifting, keeps you on edge, making even the quietest scenes feel loaded with dread. What surprised me most, though, was how The Ugly Stepsister managed to be both grotesque and deeply emotional, which is something not many horror films can pull off. Beneath the stitched eyelids, the bloody scissors, and the maggot-laced gowns, there’s a story about self-worth and how it can be slowly carved away by the people around you. What we have here is a tragedy, and by the end, I wasn’t sure if I was shaken more by the violence or by the raw sadness running underneath it all. That duality is what makes it linger. After all, it’s easy to make one flinch, but it takes a special something to haunt you days later.

Somehow, The Ugly Stepsister reclaims a story, sharpens its edges, and dares you to bleed a little with it. By the final act, the film transforms into something almost mythic. There’s no happily ever after here. Instead, it’s the lingering reminder that fairy tales have always been, at their core, warnings. Deftly, and with incredible dread, Blichfeldt summons forth all the darkness and shadows of the original lore spun by the Grimm brothers and splatters it on the screen. It’s fearless, it’s grotesque, and devastating. And it’s going to be one of the movies we’re still talking about when 2025 is long over.

You can stream The Ugly Stepsister on Prime Video.