My Creepy Right Foot
Most people have something that creeps them out, some kind of physical trauma they find it difficult to watch on screen. I think mostly it’s the smaller, relatable pains that we’ve to some extent experienced ourselves and are inherently aware of the sensation that mannerpain creates. My husband, for example, hates fingernails being torn off, it makes him wriggle about and go all queasy, however, he’s also afraid of spider, clowns, escalators and mushrooms so maybe he’s a bad example. For my mother it’s anything related to Achilles’ tendon trauma, she snapped hers a few years ago and therefore is fully aware of the agony and entitled to be creeped out. I also understand that eye trauma is quite popular one and anything relating to genitalia. I don’t have one these ‘things’, there isn’t one particular screen trauma I struggle with. I don’t know why, I’m probably just weird. I hasten to add that I do feel empathy and I appreciate the pain of others, but there just isn’t one specific that I could call ‘a thing’. Until recently. Recently I started to be creeped out by own foot, my won right foot. I many have mentioned early that I have foolishly managed to get myself a condition known as Morton’s Neuroma. Ruddy stupid, flippin’ Morton’s Neuroma is a tumour that grows on the nerve between your toes. And, as Wikipedia fail to mention, bloody hurts like all hell.
Laughingly it is most commonly suffered by stiletto wearers, dancers and athletes, none of which I sadly am, certainly not the last two, which frankly adds insult to injury, it’s like the universe is taking the piss out of me for not being sexy, talented or fit. Also, just to make it worse, because I have to do everything bigger and better than everyone else, I don’t just have one tumour, I have two, one ‘massive’ one (the radiographers words’) between my second third toe and a ‘smaller one’ between my third and fourth. I’m awesome. And I can feel them, I can feel them inside my feet all the time, even when I have no shoes on and I’m just sitting down, I can feel them, the two little buggers sitting in there pinching at my nerves laughing at me. So consequently now my own bloody foot creeps my out. Which sucks. And is a bit embarrassing. Don’t even let me get started on the ‘treatment’, urrrghhh.
What creeps you out?
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Laughingly it is most commonly suffered by stiletto wearers, dancers and athletes, none of which I sadly am, certainly not the last two, which frankly adds insult to injury, it’s like the universe is taking the piss out of me for not being sexy, talented or fit. Also, just to make it worse, because I have to do everything bigger and better than everyone else, I don’t just have one tumour, I have two, one ‘massive’ one (the radiographers words’) between my second third toe and a ‘smaller one’ between my third and fourth. I’m awesome. And I can feel them, I can feel them inside my feet all the time, even when I have no shoes on and I’m just sitting down, I can feel them, the two little buggers sitting in there pinching at my nerves laughing at me. So consequently now my own bloody foot creeps my out. Which sucks. And is a bit embarrassing. Don’t even let me get started on the ‘treatment’, urrrghhh.
What creeps you out?
I get squicked out not by massive carnage but by the little slits and slices of knives and razors: the Achilles tendon slash in PET SEMATARY, the pricking of thumbs to test for alien blood in THE THING, the knife flick to Nicholson's nose in CHINATOWN. I can watch hack-n'-slash all day, but show me somebody getting a papercut, or grabbing the wrong end of a knife or sword, and I'm a mess of cringing butt clenches and hissing through gritted teeth.
ReplyDeleteOh, Will, '...cringing butt clenches and hissing through gritted teeth' is an excellent description! That's exactly what my husband is like with the fingernail thing.
ReplyDeleteIt does always seems to be the little things that freak us out. I'm fine and watch anything, it's just when it's directly related to me that I have problems. I was looking at pictures of the surgery I may have to have earlier and I was a mess. Honestly, I'm hopeless.
Knees - anything to do with knees. Not that knee-related nastiness crops up that often in horror films - luckily for me - but I once saw a documentary about Gazza having knee surgery and it made me want to throw up. There's just something about the kneejoint going wrong and having to be probed and scraped and taken out and put back in and I'm not even going to finish the sentence.
ReplyDeleteOther than that: tendons and things. Have you seen the remake of House of Wax? When the killer comes out of the floor and slashes the tendon on the back of that guy's ankle. Yikes. Probably another one for you, come to think of it. If you haven't seen it, look away at that bit. But not at the bit where Paris Hilton gets impaled.
By the way: you asked about seventies satanism. The Mephisto Waltz is a laugh. And The Possession of Joel Delaney. And that one with Orson Welles if you're in the mood for horseshit. Necromancy, is it called? Something like that. Terrible.
Anyway, hope your foot gets better. I'll never wear stilettos again.
Horses creep Sam out. He's deathly afraid of them and finds them creepy as hell. This from a skinhead with a facial tattoo. HA!
ReplyDeleteI hate fingernails, too, and cannot stand to see someone clip theirs. That's a private act or an act to be performed in a nail salon. The thought of a big pile of fingernails in one place is also really horrifying.
I also cannot stand any kind of violence towards animals in horror movies, especially cats. It will make me actually turn off something I might actually be invested in. It doesn't creep me out, per say, it just makes me sad.
Great post, Jinx!
I am fairly easily creeped out, and it does seem to be a lot of the little things. Pretty much any damage to the face is bad for me, and that's before a dog tried to bite my nose off this past November, so I'm sure it will be even worse now.
ReplyDeleteI recently discovered that fingernails are also a huge problem. While watching the first episode of Twin Peaks, I was squirming as Agent Cooper went digging for the little piece of paper under Laura's nail.
Needles and roaches are also two things that pretty much throw me into fits the moment they appear on screen. Yup, I'm a wimp.
I knew there was a reason I always wear flats! I'm not a big fan of watching someone get stuck by needles, but I hate when people throw up in movies or TV shows. I also have to leave the room during the shaving scene in Cabin Fever.
ReplyDeleteThey talk about that tumor in The Golden Girls. In one episode one of the girls had it and she had to have surgery. Haha I can reference every thing to that show.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the treatment will go by quick and painless and you can start to feel better.
I got the same fingernails being torn off willy that your husband does. It really just bothers me. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteNothing in horror movies creeps me out as such. I used to hate it when really pretty girls got mutilated because it was such a terrible waste but now I don't even care about that anymore. Like Jenn said, I also hate it when anything bad happens to cats in films. I've actually started a new blog "The Horror Cats" to redress the balance. Unfortunately, worse things happen to cats in the so-called "Humane Societies" in the USA which is another soapbox I could so easily get on.
ReplyDeleteOn further reflection, all of "Hard Candy" creeps me out. It's not just the castration thing but I can't decide if Ellen Page looks like a boy or not and then I start wondering about things which I shouldn't do far too much. I don't like her.
I, too, have been dealing with a foot problem....
ReplyDeleteThe muscles on my left foot will cramp up, and it's been happening more lately. Like, it feels like I can't move my toes, and this tension pops up that is UNBEARABLE. The only thing I can do to make it go away is pace around with no shoes on.
I'm starting to get concerned.
So, what were the symptoms of your tumors?
For me it isn't the content so much as the portrayal. I was at a 24-hour horror movie festival a few years ago surrounded by fellow jaded college students and the films ran the gamut of bad taste. We laughed at gore-splattering decapitations; we smirked at psychosexual cannibalistic orgies; we caused ferocious disembowelments to run home and cry to their mothers.
ReplyDeleteCut to the surgery scene in Eyes Without a Face; my goodness, you could have heard a pin drop if it weren't for all the uncomfortably squirming asses. It's not the "realism" (the special effects are pretty primitive); it's not the shock value; it's not even the very idea of the act itself. It's the director's cold, clinical, unflinching gaze on a brutal act of malice that is all the more perturbing for the perpetrating surgeon's casual air.
So, I guess I would have to say that face transplants are currently batting a thousand.
Matthew, Gazza has that effect on me too, I often feel nauseous when I see him. Great suggestions too, They'll keep me occupied over Easter.
ReplyDeleteAw, Jenn, I knew Sam had to be a big softy from the pics of him with the kitties. I'd never found horses creepy, but I'll have to keep an eye on them now. Love the nail thing too.
Obviously, I'm totally with you and the Doc on the violence against animals thing, upsetting in films, completely deplorable in real life.
Oh, Syrin, I hope you are ok. That's a fair ole list you got going on. I didn't realise needles was quite such a common one, but I keep hearing of so many people who can't stand the though of them.
And you are one of them too, Tabitha! I watch myself get tattooed so I'm fine with that. I kind of like the Cabin Fever one in a comedy way, but I can see what you mean about it. Stick to the flats, girl!
Oh, Jenny that has cheered me up no end! Thank you. God bless the Golden Girls.
Hi there, GWLH. Hope you had a great birthday. Yup the nail thing seems popular too, and it does seem to be in a lot of films too. Honestly, my husband about wriggles out of his seat.
Oh, Doc, I can't believe you don't care about the pretty girls anymore. For the love of God someone had to think about the pretty girls!
Oh, Andrew, I know your pain. Generally Morton's Neuroma is characterised by pain in the effected toes, usually some combination of the outer one. For me it was an excruciating, crippling kind of pain that made walking agony and caused me to use the outside of my foot to compensate. It can also manifests as numbness of the toes or pins and needles. Because of the location it's largely constricting pressure across the area around the ball that causes the pain so the symptoms are generally almost completely alleviated once the shoes are removed. You can also feel it in the ball of the foot, kind of like you are constantly standing on an electrical table or have something stuck inside your shoe, and sometimes you can feel it sort of pinging in your foot as you walk on it. You should definitely get it checked out just in case, but honestly, even it is what I have it's absolutely nothing to worry about, it's completely harmless, removed easily, and with a bit of care reoccurrence can be avoided. I'm just a big drama queen. Please let me know how it goes and if you have anymore questions let me know. x
How delightful to see you, Groundskeeper. I love your answer because logical, intelligent thought clearly governs it, me I'm just sat there looking at my own foot going 'urrrgh, it's so icky.'
I have repeated nightmares in which all of my teeth fall out. So, tooth torture in movies makes me a bit icky.* Also, fingernails. And achilles heel stuff.
ReplyDelete* Mind you, I broke a tooth recently and it didn't bother me at all. So I don't really know where I stand with this whole squeamishness thing.
Well, hope the foot gets better soon, chum.