A widow, Rebekka, has two ugly daughters named Elvira and Alma. She marries an older widower, Otto, who has a beautiful daughter named Agnes. Otto and Rebekka each hope to become wealthy via the other, only to discover they are both penniless. Agnes behaves haughtily towards her stepmother and stepsisters for their relatively low social status, however Elvira, in awe of her stepsister's beauty and poise, is friendly toward her. One evening during dinner with Rebekka and their three daughters, Otto suddenly dies. Royal heralds announce that all noble young virgins are invited to a ball, where Prince Julian will choose a wife. To save them from poverty, Rebekka plans to marry off Elvira, her eldest daughter, to Julian. While Elvira dreams of marrying the obnoxious prince, Rebekka considers her too ugly to succeed. To improve Elvira's chances with the prince, Rebekka subjects her to a series of primitive and painful
cosmetic surgeries. Elvira and Agnes are both enrolled in Sophie von Kronenberg's
finishing school for girls. During dance classes, Agnes is allowed to stand at the front of the room with the pretty girls, whereas Elvira is relegated to the back with the uglier girls. The dance teacher humiliates Elvira in front of the class by acknowledging that, while Elvira is a talented dancer, her talent is "wasted" due to her weight and looks. This pressure causes Elvira's initial admiration for her stepsister to turn to resentment. Sophie later gives Elvira a
tapeworm egg for weight loss. At home, Agnes reprimands her stepmother for spending their remaining money on Elvira's beauty treatments instead of paying to bury her father, whose rotting corpse is being stored in a disused room of the house. When Elvira encounters Prince Julian in the woods by chance, he mocks her appearance and is revealed to be a shallow womanizer, though Elvira continues to be smitten with him. One night, Elvira discovers Agnes having sex with Isak, a
stable boy, and tells Rebekka. Disgusted, Rebekka throws Isak out and makes Agnes a servant, with the family calling her
Cinderella. As the royal ball approaches, Elvira becomes malnourished and her hair starts falling out due to the tapeworm. Meanwhile, Alma has her first period, but does not tell her mother for fear she will be subjected to the same horrors as Elvira. Rebekka also has Agnes pulled from finishing school. Due to her improved appearance, Elvira takes over the starring role for the dance the school will perform at the ball. During a dress fitting, the dress merchant provides Elvira with an elegant ball gown and a blonde wig to hide her hair loss. Elvira later sees Agnes with a ball gown that belonged to Agnes's late mother and angrily destroys it. Sleeping next to her father's corpse, Agnes awakens to
a vision of her birth mother, who gives her a beautiful pair of shoes and warns her that the carriage will turn back into a pumpkin by midnight. Agnes's gown is mended by
silkworms from her father's body. At the ball, Elvira attracts Prince Julian's interest and he chooses her to be his partner for the opening dance, but he quickly shifts his attention to a veiled Agnes, who arrives late. Elvira retreats to another room and vomits up tapeworm eggs. Rebekka forces her to dance with other men, whereupon Elvira sees Agnes without the veil. Agnes flees as the clock strikes midnight, leaving one shoe behind. Prince Julian declares he will marry the woman whose foot fits the shoe. Back home, aware that Agnes left behind a slipper, Elvira attacks Agnes with a
butcher knife and demands the other shoe. Since her feet are too large, Elvira attempts to sever her toes using the knife. Rebekka coldly remarks that Elvira mutilated the wrong foot. Rebekka sedates Elvira and mutilates the "correct" foot, horrifying Alma. The next morning, Elvira hears trumpets announcing the prince's arrival. She crawls on the floor, unable to walk, then falls down a flight of stairs, breaking her nose and chipping her teeth, only to find that the prince and Agnes have already found each other. Alma convinces Elvira to take an antidote to expel the tapeworm, which has grown to an enormous size. The sisters steal their mother's jewelry and leave so they can live free from her tyranny, while Rebekka
fellates a young nobleman from the ball; she notices her daughters leaving but does not stop them. A pair of ravens eat the tapeworm's remains as the sisters ride away. Otto's rotting corpse remains forgotten in the house. ==Cast==