A Dream Is a Wish Your Tapeworm Makes

There's a reckoning every elder millennial must make with the fact that a giant chunk of her childhood entertainment celebrated physical beauty above all else. We've all had our deep revisionist Barbie era, but if you, like me, were in part raised by clamshell VHS cases containing animated Disney fairy tales, it's sometimes jarring to realize just how many of these stories hinged on the gorgeous girl getting her (often) silent man.

Cinderella is one of the worst offenders. Yes, our heroine is at least nice (we know this because animals like her) but the way that film juices every ounce of ickiness out of its physically less appealing villainesses is, to a 21st century eyeball, kind of gross.

So bring on the revisionist horror adaptations!  

Quick Plot: Elvira (the wonderful Lea Myren) is your typical awkward teen girl, fishing chocolate out of her braces and fantasizing a poetry-filled life with Germany's most eligible bachelor: Prince Julian. Her prospects seem to improve when her widowed mother Rebekka marries a baron, but the celebration is short-lived. Not only does the groom die before digesting his own wedding cake, but his beautiful daughter Agnes quickly reveals that their household like Elvira's, is broke. 

Rebekka despairs, but Elvira sees opportunity when the prince announces an upcoming ball to choose his bride. Surely some charm school, a little nose job, and a quick round of orthodontic work can take her to the crown?

If you thought dieting was rough in your lifetime, imagine how much worse it was a few hundred years earlier. Tapeworms crawled so Ozempic could run.

Elvira works hard to transform her awkwardness into a conventional beauty, losing as much weight as she does hair and even more of her very own soul. Younger sister Alma watches in horror, hiding her own menstruation to stay as far away from balls and betrothments as possible. With her blond hair and perfect face, Agnes is assumed to be the most likely princess but her secret tryst with the stable boy sends her down to the bottom of the social pile. 

With less competition and a newly thin physique, Elvira inches closer to winning the prince. But Agnes still has a fairy godmother, magical pumpkin, and friendly silkworm tailors to steal the day.

The Ugly Stepsister is the debut of Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt, and what a statement it makes. To make your first film as a period fairy tale with body horror elements no one has ever seen before is quite a swing, and Blichfeldt is positively roaring with technique. She's aided by incredible photography and costuming, making The Ugly Stepsister feel as rich as something like Marie Antoinette. 

Bilchfeldt has also written an appropriately wicked script. It's hard to not draw comparisons to Coralie Farget's The Substance, another deeply female-driven flipped fairy tale about just how horrific it is to internalize society's arbitrary and impossible beauty standards. Like The Substance, The Ugly Stepsister is aggressively visceral with a dark sense of humor about how far women will go to reach their ideal. 

I really enjoyed The Ugly Stepsister whilst watching, but a few days later, I find myself loving it. There's a lot to ponder in terms of its themes, which seem easy on the basic level but are far more complex the more you dig. And along the way, we get absolutely vile body horror from a female lens. It's exactly my kind of movie. 

High Points

I won't spoil it, but by golly did I find Elvira and Alma's ending to be satisfying

Low Points

And here I will SPOIL, so skip until you've watched:

It's only in the final moments that I came to truly understand the real villain of the piece. Maybe this will be clearer on (an almost guaranteed) second viewing, but it's ultimately Rebekka who seems to take on the bulk of responsibility for the terrible things Elvira puts herself through. The freedom Elvira and Alma ultimately find in living poor lives as happy hags (I say this with extreme affection) is something they have to grab away from this woman who has forced them to follow the same hateful doctrine she has modeled her own unhappy, if aesthetically pleasing life upon. Sure, Julian and his royal friends are shallow jerks for how they view woman, but to do the same from the inside like Rebekka is something much, much worse. I think there's a way to watch The Ugly Stepsister with this in mind and find a richer experience. We'll see next time.

Lessons Learned

There's no better consolation than chocolate

If you're marrying for money, check your intended's bank account before putting on that ring

Rotting barn corpses are fertile breeding grounds for fairy godmothers

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Ugly Stepsister isn't a complete masterpiece, but it's an incredible debut, and one that makes me wildly excited for Emilie Blichfeldt's future. This is such a rich, gross, funny, and gloriously twisted tale that it's an immediate recommend. Find it on Shudder and live happily ever after.

Nerd Alert!

 

It's been far too long since I nerded out with some genre book recommendations. So put on those spectacles and let's go to the library!

Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven

World War Z (the book, not bland excuse for a movie) laid out a pretty great template for how to tackle an high concept story. Oral histories aren't new, but Max Brooks took the format to such success with his epic zombie tale that it's not surprising to see the next generation of horror novelists try the same thing. Mike Bockoven doesn't really have the same sharpness in his actual writing, but by golly can he tell a fun story. In Fantasticland, we follow the bizarre fallout of an unprecedented hurricane locking a Florida theme part away from the rest of the world. The mostly twentysomething part-time employees are left to quickly form their own tribes, enjoying all of the concession stand offerings while turning gift shop souvenirs into grand scale weaponry. It's a wild ride that doesn't fully work if you think too hard about it, but you'll have a hard time putting it down. 

Pair It With:

H.G. Bells' Sleep Over is similarly a better idea than novel, but it's SUCH a good idea. It follows the same oral history style as Fantasticland, only with more widespread apocalyptic overtones. One day, nobody can sleep. And the next day, they still can't. What happens to the world when every one of its inhabitants is functioning in a fugue state? A whole lot of pretty horrible stuff. Enjoy!

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

 

There's nothing new is framing the beauty industry as body horror, but Ling Ling Huang's exploration brings some new ideas to the table. A former piano prodigy stumbles into a day job at an innovative new spa. Before she can read the side effects, she's experiencing bizarre transformations that turn her Chinese-American identity into something very, very different. Huang's writing isn't for everyone, but it's a very specific window that's worth a peek through. 

Pair It With:

I haven't had the chance to write about just how much I loved The Substance, and now that it's a bona fide 4-time Oscar nominee, there's a part of me that feels like you don't need me telling you what you probably already know: it's a joyfully gross rave of just how weird body dysmorphia makes us. 

Mister Magic by Kiersten White

The setup of Mister Magic is incredibly cool: the youth cast of a Romper Room-esque kids show reunites as adults, only nobody, including the internet, quite remembers why the show ended in the first place. There is somehow no video evidence of it ever even airing, though the Mandela Effect is in full swing with chat room typers who can fill in the blanks. Author Kiersten White was raised Mormon and seems to use Mister Magic as a thoughtful way to explore the stifling, dangerous nature that religion wields over its children. The novel doesn't quite go as dark as you might expect early on so horror readers should keep their expectations in check. Still, it's a unique idea that should satisfy some readers.

Pair It With:

I had last mentioned Mister Magic in a review for Mr. Crocket, which certainly shares some story threads in following an '80s children's television show personality with nefarious motives towards his audience. It's an easy double bill, but I'll also throw out the title of 2024's best film, and one that also happens to use fuzzy media nostalgia as a lens to find a deeper understanding of identity: I Saw the TV Glow.

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

If you liked Babylon but thought it needed more dark magic, allow me to introduce you to the glorious Siren Queen. Set in the golden pre-Hays Code Hollywood, Nghi Vo's novel follows an ambitious Chinese American actress as she navigates monstrous studio heads and witchy wilting stars who have all sold aspects of their soul to live the dream. Luli is willing to do the same but only on the condition that she never be cast as a maid. So where does that leave a non-caucasian, queer starlet? Well, as the monster of course! Vo goes all in with turning the studio backlots into a weekly witches' sabbaths, with characters shapeshifting into far more interesting creatures than any plastic surgery could create. 

Pair It With:

I'm not always the biggest fan of Hollywood stories, as the behind-the-scenes narratives usually just feel too insidery or depressing. Both descriptions fit a film I love in spite of this: Kevin Kolsh and Dennis Widmeyer's Starry Eyes, which stars a game Alex Essoe as a struggling actress who finds herself in situations not unlike Luli. If you enjoyed the brutal Starry Eyes, Siren Queen might read for you as a similar story told decades earlier.

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers 

Deliciously twisted is the best way I'd describe this novel, which follows a painfully chic food critic who discovers that nothing tastes as good as the perfectly prepared flesh of an ex. It's impossible not to be swept up in the glamorous, worldly life of our occasional cannibalistic narrator Dorothy Daniels. Summers relishes Dorothy's unapologetic hedonism, and I found it impossible not to root for her to savor every bite.

Pair It With:

I'm certainly not saying Ridley Scott's Hannibal is a good movie, but it is, in the words of modern vernacular, a VIBE, and therefore, a fitting pairing to A Certain Hunger in celebrating the carnal pleasure of perfectly prepared meat.