Movie Idea

FADE IN:

Our story opens on the slopes of Mammoth Mountain. Podiatrist, Amy Footfall has just taken a spill and severely wrenched the anterior talofibular ligament of her left pedal extremity. As she lies moaning in agony, a dashing skier carves a hockey stop into the side of the hill coming to her aid. He too cries out in pain. He has just aggravated the shin splints he has gotten from years of down-hilling off chair nine. But gamely, he helps her become vertical and they hobble their way down the mountain, laughing at their stupidity and occasionally shifting their weight to each other's strong side all the way to the lodge and first aid.

As they sit, feet exposed on examining tables across from each other, her swollen ankle arouses him in ways he never realized. This vision of bulbous-yet-intriguing pedal architecture has awakened a desire he's long repressed and never truly understood. He realized he had a burning desire for a swollen and distended podiatrist's foot! For her part, Amy too is smitten, though for reasons she is unable to quantify and extremities she is unable to see.

Thus begins a whirlwind romance, replete with visits to shoe museums, Nine West, the Easy Spirit factory, the Hush Puppies outlet and K-Swiss' R&D facility. (This will of course, be addressed as montage, with romantic marching music.)

But soon a more sinister turn of events. Amy's patients begin dying in weird and mysterious ways. One snags his Achilles tendon on a lawn sprinkler and it snaps, sending him hurtling into a wood chipper. Another stumbles on her tailor's bunion and falls down a sheer cliff face, impaling herself on the giant toe of a statue commemorating the famous running-on-the beach scene from Chariots of Fire. When the third mysterious death occurrs...a patient with athlete's foot, is run down and cleated to pieces by an entire football team running laps,...the coroner calls in the police. Just too many coincidences.

A knock at Amy's door. It is a swarthy Police detective of Greek extract. Detective Tibialis Tendonitis steps across the threshold. He introduces himself. .

"I can see you have a high instep detective."

"Yeah. I was born with it. Well look doc, I just need to axe you a few questions."

"Axe away, flatfoot."

"How'd you know my nickname?"

"Deductive reasoning."

"You'd best leave that to the professionals doc." But secretly, he was impressed with this podiatrist's natural abilty to sniff out a trail.

She nods, her auburn air catching a glint of sunlight from reflections off the 32 story glass tower across the street. The detective is impressed again.

With that, he begins an hour-long examination of the facts, with more than a few glances down at her shapely metatarsals. A few questions about her skier boyfriend and their relationship and finally, at the end of the interview, he asks one last question.

"Doc. Do you mind if I call you doc?"

"Not at all Flatfoot."

And with that, he departs to follow the leads. He interviews the plantar fasciitis patient. She seems to wince with every mention of heel pain. The detective takes note. Next, he calls on a seedy bag-man for a local bookie, "Hammertoes Wilkins." But Hammertoes clams up.

"He's covering his tracks", thinks Flatfoot. He notes that Hammertoes walks on the balls of his feet and asks him why.

"Uh...uhh that's uh..how it's most comfortable for me. I got..you know..h..h..heel spurs too!"

"Heel spurs too?" The detective mulls this. It may be significant. In fact, it is. The next day Hammertoes Wilkins' body is found by scuba divers off the coast of Palos Verdes, his feet encased in concrete overshoes, in an area brimming with arthropods.

In desperation, the detective runs down the list. He's missing something...corns, callouses, diabetic gangrene, gout. Nothing..Nada...Zilch. Capezio, Nike, Adidas, Dr. Scholl's, Thom McAn, Buster Brown. Damn! Nothing fits!

He heads for home. In this case, a run-down shoe-box of a room in a seedy hotel near the Elysian Park jogging trails. As he climbs from his car, another car careens around the corner and rips the door right out of his hand. If he'd had his foot on the ground, it'd have been that other car's hood ornament. It was pretty obvious he was getting too close. He was just missing something, but what?

The detective decides to retrace his steps to track the killer's. Suddenly, the other shoe drops. If it'd been a snake, it'd have bit his ankle! It's as clear as the polish on his toes! It can only mean one thing. A fetishist! Everything tracks back to the doc's downhill-skier boyfriend! He decides to hold the number one suspect's feet to the fire.

Toeing the mark for hours, the skier finally breaks down and admits everything. He wanted Amy all to himself. He couldn't help himself. He couldn't bear the thought of her feet being in close proximity to those FREAKS!

"But how did you figure it out? How did you know it was me?

The detective turns on his heels. And as he leaves, the guards shackle the skier in leg-irons. The detective pauses, whirls to face the skier and says: "Deductive reasoning. Just like the Chinese proverb about the Fou bird...If the shoe fits. I learned it from the doc. "

With that, he strides away down the long hall of justice, his Fry boots holding his head just a bit higher today.

The skier groans and bows HIS head in shame. As the camera pans down to his feet, we...

FADE OUT

ROLL CREDITS