Cinema is as much about wanting the audience to look as to look away. Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt’s feature debut, The Ugly Stepsister, a body horror version of the Cinderella story, tests the audience’s tolerance for visceral beautification treatments and other forms of physical horror. And there are no shortage of moments where it appears Blichfeldt is daring her audience to try and not look away.

The physical and emotional abuse Blichfeldt inflicts on the titular character, Elvira (Lea Myren), will not be forgotten. Reaching the extremes of a deranged means of weight control and self-mutilation, the director’s violent and dark take on this classic story is a nauseating and stomach-churning experience. Having now watched The Ugly Stepsister, it’s hardly surprising that one person vomited in the aisle at the Sundance Premiere. Even outside the body horror and sexual vulgarity, this version of Cinderella provokes strong feelings of disgust, albeit, in the right way.

Blichfeldt shifts focus from the Cinderella character of Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), to the eldest of her two stepsisters, Elvira. The story begins when Agnes’ father welcomes his new bride Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) and her teenage daughters Elvira and Alma (Flo Fagerli) into his home. When he dies suddenly, Agnes is left in the care of her stepmother, who learns that her late husband was penniless.

Prince Julian’s (Isac Aspberg) search for a bride offers a solution to Rebekka’s woes — she can marry off her eldest daughter, who has come of age. The only problem is that she fears her daughter cannot compete with other beautiful young ladies. So, Elvira is put through a series of surgical procedures in the hope of transforming her into a beautiful young lady that can attract the Prince at the upcoming castle ball, or another rich suitor. Meanwhile, Agnes soon finds herself living a life of servitude, waiting on her stepmother and stepsisters after she’s caught with the stable boy.

Blichfeldt’s 2013 short film, How Do You Like My Hair? And 2018’s Sara’s Intimate Confession, reveals the director’s long-held interest in the subject of body image. The latter shows Blichfeldt’s humorous wit, in which a conversation is conjured up with a talkative vulva.

Dark humour beats within Blichfeldt’s heart, and there are enough moments in The Ugly Stepsister that it feels like it was conceived through the director’s dark humorous gaze. This appears contradictory to the extreme physical horror Blichfeldt confronts her audience with, but it effectively eases the severity of the film’s visceral tone. There may even be moments where she elicits a wry smile or slight laughter, by finding humour in the darkness. For example, the mad scientist-like character, Dr. Esthétique (Adam Lundgren).

He’s a sadist who views the human body as a means to indulge his narcissism and misguided God-like persona by perfecting the imperfect bodies God himself has created. This is never explicitly expressed by Blichfeldt, nor is it discreetly hidden in the subtext.

It’s difficult not to look away from the screen for a momentary escape as Dr. Esthétique performs his procedures — first Elvira’s nose, forcing her to wear a metal brace-like contraption afterwards, and then her eyelashes. The nauseating body horror will affect audiences differently, depending on the vulnerabilities we feel in our own bodies. Blichfeldt, however, successfully taps into the natural fear of physical vulnerability, and the horror of physical pain and transformation.

David Cronenberg’s body horror is clearly an influence on Blichfeldt, but there’s a surprising parallel. In the scene when Esthétique’s chisel strikes the bridge of Elvira’s nose, the connection is not to Cronenberg’s numerous body horror works, but the sauna fight scene in Eastern Promises (2007) — the sound of the blade slicing and penetrating the body.

Blichfeldt’s reimagining of the Cinderella story hones in on physical insecurities and the pain that people will endure to conform to social expectations of beauty. It’s not only Elvira’s obsessive behaviour, but the complicity of her mother and Esthétique that explores generational trauma, and the coercive reality of traditions and expectations.

Agnes, meanwhile, explores how women are traditionally punished for their sexuality and autonomy, and specifically, in this period, how a woman’s virginity was an important part of a transactional relationship. Here Blichfeldt connects Agnes to modern woman’s politicised struggle for autonomy over her own body, and, like Elvira, how everything is rooted in established traditions that state the expectations of how a woman should appropriately behave.

Rebekka is a fascinating character because she’s Blichfeldt’s way of mocking the hypocrisy of sexual morals and the pretence of false dignity among the elite. Blichfeldt presents this with visual and verbal crude humour, but one that cuts a scathing critique of how women have been objectified throughout history.

The Ugly Stepsister is an act of adding dimensions to the popularly known fairy tale. It deviates from, but still has parallels to the various oral and written versions dating back to early antiquity, and with clear references to the self-mutilation in the Brothers Grimm version. Blichfeldt drags Cinderella through the dirt, denying her purity and frames Elvira more sympathetically. But just as Agnes is not above snobbery, so too is Elvira not above cruelty.

Blichfeldt muddies the moral simplicity, yet in keeping with the fairy tale or parable offers the illusion of a clear and incisive message — here-about the price of envy, the pursuit of superficial beauty and one’s desire. Or, perhaps it’s a cynical tale about how those that have shall have, and everyone else will go without. And in the end, can you rewrite history?

The Ugly Stepsister is in cinemas on Friday, April 25th, and on Shudder on Friday, May 9th. On other platforms on Monday, June 16th. Also showing at Tiff Romania