The Norwegian body horror film The Ugly Stepsister has been making audiences vomit since its Sundance premiere and is now nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 2026 Oscars, with its hair and makeup team pioneering a “beauty horror” aesthetic using historically inspired, stomach-churning techniques.
What does it take for a film to be so viscerally unsettling that it triggers physical illness in viewers? For the Norwegian body horror-black comedy The Ugly Stepsister, it’s a deliberate artistic choice that has now earned its hair and makeup team a trip to the 2026 Oscars. The film, which reimagines the Cinderella story from the perspective of the stepsister Elvira, has been causing audiences to vomit since its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, a reaction that director Emilie Blichfeldt calls a “common feedback” that proves their “beauty horror” approach is working.
The “Beauty Horror” Vision: Between Grotesque and Glamour
Blichfeldt coined the term “beauty horror” to describe the film’s core aesthetic—a tightrope walk between repulsion and allure. Unlike traditional horror that relies on jump scares, The Ugly Stepsister uses prolonged, agonizing sequences of body modification that prey on the audience’s gag reflexes. The director cites Clive Barker’s Hellraiser as a reference for its “grotesque glamour” and its influence on the texture of the film’s gore, but she intentionally made the effects feel slightly artificial, adding a layer of campiness that heightens the discomfort.
The central challenge was crafting the transformation of Elvira, played by Lea Myren, from a relatable teenager into a figure of grotesque beauty. Blichfeldt wanted the prosthetic work by Thomas Foldberg to be so seamless that viewers wouldn’t immediately think “prosthetics,” while also embracing a cartoonish quality that evokes Disney villainy without tipping into pure caricature. This duality—simultaneously believable and fantastical—is key to the film’s unsettling power.
- The Ugly Stepsister is nominated at the 2026 Academy Awards for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
- The Norwegian body horror film has been making audiences vomit since its debut at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
- The film’s hair and makeup team, Thomas Foldberg and Anne Cathrine Sauerberg, plus writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt, discussed the movie and its Oscar nod in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE.
Historical Horrors: From Tapeworms to Sewn Eyelashes
The film’s most infamous scenes are rooted in historical or rumored cosmetic practices. Blichfeldt’s research uncovered 19th-century techniques like a hammer-and-chisel rhinoplasty, which is historically accurate, and the Parisian fashion of sewing eyelashes directly onto the lower eyelid. The most dramatic arc involves a tapeworm, a metaphor for the lengths people go to achieve an “ideal” body. Blichfeldt explains that the tapeworm wasn’t just a shock device but a narrative necessity: “It’s like putting in a loaded gun in the script. It has to blow off at some point.” The creature’s eventual expulsion symbolizes Elvira’s liberation from self-objectification.
The execution of these ideas fell to Foldberg and Sauerberg, who worked on an “extremely low budget,” as Sauerberg underscores. Foldberg’s prosthetic mastery made the gore effects appear campy and fake while still being viscerally effective, a balance Blichfeldt insisted on. Sauerberg’s hair and makeup design, inspired by 1960s and 1970s aesthetics, complemented the prosthetics to create a cohesive, period-specific world of beauty obsession.
Oscar Recognition: A Milestone for Horror
The film’s nomination for Best Makeup and Hairstyling places it alongside fellow horror nominees Frankenstein, Sinners, Kokuho, and The Smashing Machine, marking a significant shift in how the Academy views the genre. Foldberg notes that horror has long been a reference point for other genres—citing The Exorcist and Don’t Look Now—but rarely acknowledged on its own. “It feels nice that it’s being viewed in the same way as all other genres,” he says, highlighting a long-overdue validation for horror’s artistic merit.
The nomination is especially sweet for Blichfeldt, who faced skepticism about her debut feature’s ambitious prosthetic demands. “People told me I was crazy to try to make a movie where the character [Elvira] would change so much,” she recalls. The Oscar nod validates not only the technical prowess of Foldberg and Sauerberg but also the film’s cohesive vision, achieved on a tight budget and schedule.
The Team’s Reactions: From Three Hearts to Oscar Gold
Sauerberg’s initial reaction to the nomination news was understated—she texted Foldberg three hearts while on set, thinking they were merely shortlisted. “I saw it as a comfort that, ‘Okay, we got shortlisted and we should be proud of it,’” she admits. Only later did she realize they were officially nominated, sharing the moment with the Polish production company involved in the film.
Foldberg, meanwhile, was in a meeting when his phone erupted. The three-heart text from Sauerberg was his first clue. “Then this craziness started,” he says. Both artists point to Myren’s physical performance as crucial to the film’s impact; her ability to convey relatable suffering makes even the most outlandish procedures emotionally resonant.
Why It Matters: Beyond the Vomit
The Ugly Stepsister is more than a shock film; it’s a feminist allegory about the violence of beauty standards. By focusing on Elvira’s desperate, gruesome attempts to fit an unattainable ideal, Blichfeldt forces audiences
