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This Cinderella Story Will Haunt You: breaking down The Ugly Stepsister (Review)

femme fatale's heels

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The Ugly Stepsister takes everything we thought we knew about Cinderella and turns it into a disturbing, feminist body horror fable. In this deep dive, I explore how the film tackles themes of beauty, sisterhood, transformation, and the brutal cost of chasing perfection.

From grotesque metamorphoses to a haunting critique of societal beauty standards, this film doesn’t hold back — and neither does this video. We’ll break down the symbolism, the horror, and the heartbreak behind one of the most unsettling fairytale retellings in recent memory.

#TheUglystepsister #review

00:00 is “the ugly stepsister” a new “substance”?
01:25 elvira’s lust for fantasy
03:24 the dark fairytale begins
04:50 age, beauty and womanhood
05:51 to win the prince: the ball and high stakes
06:43 makeover montages and the ugly stepsister
07:17 elvira’s first painful transformations
07:32 sister alma: a silent observer of cruelty
07:51 ugly girls belong in the back
09:04 black swan parallel and eating
09:42 realty vs fairytale: the cost of beauty
10:32 the tapeworm and cinderella’s affair
11:38 meeting (not so) charming prince
12:36 intimacy as sacred fairytale
13:22 new nose, new body new horror
15:22 cinderella’s mother and power of womanhood
16:06 the ball turns into a nightmare
18:15 to cut or not to cut: elvira’s brutal decision
19:26 elvira’s loss, mother’s greed, sister’s help
20:27 sisterhood as salvation
20:38 the conclusion

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20 Comments

@femmefatalesheelseng Creator 11 months ago Pinned

Hi everyone! Since many of you asked in the comments, I thought it would be easier to answer here. This video became the most-watched on our channel, and a lot of you were wondering if it was narrated by AI — and, as I mentioned in the comments, yes, it was.

This is actually one of the first videos on our channel, so at that time I was still experimenting with the format. I’m Ukrainian and felt quite insecure about my pronunciation, so the AI voice is based on my own. But I’m happy to say that thanks to your support, I now narrate all my videos in my own voice — you can check one of the latest uploads on the channel.

The script for this video was entirely written by me — I literally paused the movie to write it — but since English isn’t my native language, I apologize for any possible mistakes. Transparency is really important to me because I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m trying to trick them with AI or anything like that.

Also, this video is demonetized (possibly due to the Russian film distributor — and I can’t help but wonder if it’s connected to me being Ukrainian), so if you’d like to support my work, you can do so on Patreon.

@ABadCaseOfPurpleLover 1 year ago

The ending is so tragic and yet sweet, like, yeah Elvira destroyed her body in irreversible conditions beyond belief, but at least she has her sister

@kennymcnugget6009 1 year ago (edited)

Ngl, I'm rather happy this movie didn't choose to end on a dark, depressing note like I expected. If anything, it was rather bittersweet. I like it when dark horror movies, especially ones that show us the rather grotesque realities of our world, still try to give us a small glimpse of hope despite everything the main character/s went through.

@6Kubik 1 year ago

The step sisters were never described as ugly. They are described as "beautiful" from the outside but with dark hearts.

@spiceupyourafterlife 1 year ago

I think it's pretty obvious why Agnes wants to marry Prince Julien, despite being in love with Isak. She doesn't want to marry the prince for love, she wants to marry him for financial stability. Unlike Elvira, Agnes doesn't romanticize the prince because (being more mature and sexually experienced) she sees him exactly for what he is: a horny sleazeball with money. She clearly doesn't love him, but she needs to survive.

@SorrySorriSowwie 1 year ago

I feel like the true final message of the film is “be the weird horse girl”

@salazar556 1 year ago

We finally got a Cinderella movie that's very close to the original tale.

@gaywizard-u7v 1 year ago

I like how the movie doesn’t pit the girls against each other the way most films would - neither Cinderella or Elvira are evil, just flawed. I also appreciate how it still manages to show the way women can uphold unfair systems, even when it damages other women.

@jonathanperez5533 1 year ago (edited)

15:33 this is actually a detail of the Grimm Brothers version of Cinderella as well, which includes her mother’s Wishing Tree, rather than the fairy god mother,

@tharc1234 1 year ago

I can only imagine how the younger sister felt. Seeing all those horrible things and thinking she must be the only sane person in the room. In the end, the younger sister was the true prince. The true knight in shining armor breaking the cycle of abuse.

@rosaleenstark9187 1 year ago

One thing I lile is that we learn that despite being a princess now Agnes dad is still not buried and is now a skeleton, in the end Agnes still has no power, and it's clear she's not gonna truly be happy with the prince, she has a temporary happy ending while Elvira and Alma have their happy ending

@NoOne00 1 year ago

It's interesting that even after death, CInderella's mother (and father through the silkworms) are pushing her to the prince's arms, surely someone who is basically a ghost would know how horrible the prince actually is. She's basically doing the same thing as Elvira's mother.

@Lalikaki-es7ug 1 year ago

The ending of the film is not happy for anyone, Agnes will probably be tortured by the prince, he is a sadistic psychopath.

@SirkkaTurbopillu 1 year ago

The room Elvira stumbles into after her eyelash surgery is the dinner table her step-father died by. It is shows that Agnes visits the room regularly. Agnes feeds Elvira spoilt cake and rotten spaghetti, but Elvira's hunger probably makes it so that she swallows everything without noticing what it really going on.

@Roseforthethorns 1 year ago

Alma was a REAL ONE for helping and supporting Elvira. I legit couldn’t watch that whole scene. I felt so queasy.

@ciao-u5z 1 year ago

The scariest thing is that they keep calling her ugly when the actress is drop dead gorgeous. She looks like an angel.

@hustlemalonefan1015 1 year ago

I think it says something that Elvira doesn’t consider herself ugly until she subject to the judgment of others. You can tell by that first fantasy sequence, she is as dreamy and romantic as the prince without any dramatic change to her appearance, only her styling.

@Yuri-mq6mr 1 year ago

Never in my life i was disgusted or horrified by a movie before. But this. The worm scene made me feel like throwing up. The amputation scene disturbed me to my core. I dont think i will be able to finish this movie.

@nessc5825 1 year ago

It’s also interesting and important to look at Agnes mother, ‘fairy godmother’ and the transformation given to her all came from a place of death. The dress was destroyed, mother was dead, father’s decaying body gave rise to silk worms. At the same time as in all Cinderella tales it is only a very short temporary rebirth from the ashes… and then you go back to what you were before… until someone else picks you up… which Agnes gets on the wrong side of in the end. But if we look at most Cinderella tales when the prince takes her away it is usually a permanent parting… another death of one’s past or way of life… either way after the wedding Cinderella’s story ends… she has fulfilled her purpose the two sisters have a real life we might be able to realistically imagine rather than fantasize

@AlexaOleksa 1 year ago

The fact that Cinderella gets a prince who is actually a cruel man who also uses women, shows tfat tge competition often over a nan who doesn't even deserve to be competed over. One cfaracter mutilates herself and another gets herself an abuser, like it's a lose lose situation