Toe Tags

From Fetishism to Grief: How Feet become Symbols of Obsession and Disgust.

For all the kinksters out there, the feet fetish is probably the one that suffers the least judgment, with plenty of admirers, even if many won’t admit it.

Am I one of them? Absolutely not. I do appreciate beautiful feet, though I’m probably more of a high heels fetishist. And I can’t help wondering whether someone has nice ones to show.

Call it hidden voyeurism or pure obsessive curiosity.

Once again, Domiziano Cristopharo and Jon Devlin with their latest collaboration “Toe Tags,” explore another taboo through an anthology of six short-films directed by six different filmmakers.

While each segment has its own style, I found a unifying theme running through them, with some stories resonating with me more than others.

The anthology opens with “Clara,” written and directed by Domiziano Cristopharo. An introspective short about a woman who inherits her late mother’s shoe collection.

Losing a parent and taking over their wardrobe isn’t only about keeping a memory alive. It can become an unhealthy obsession with someone who’s gone, a painful attempt to keep part of them close.

More psychological than blood-soaked, but no less uncomfortable to watch. Some scenes create a deeply emotional and disturbing feeling.

“Nails,” written and directed by Cory DeAn Cowley, is probably the goriest segment. Disfigurement and self-mutilation reinforce an uneasy descent into paranoia while a whispered monologue builds tension until everything falls apart.

“Podophile,” written and directed by Pete Lankston, is without any doubt the most controversial, extreme and unsettling short, exploring child domestic abuse.

While the story touches on sensitive subjects, its sense of catharsis comes through the vengeance it delivers, something only animation could portray this way.

“Il Paio Perfetto,” written and directed by Jon Devlin, delivers his grotesque mix of comedy and underground extreme horror.

Like a transvestite Cinderella with shades of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and Italian giallo, its protagonist searches not for the perfect shoe to fit the right girl, but the perfect feet to fit the shoes he owns… and that’s a promise he made to his feet.

“Part of Your World,” written and directed by Irene Jones Baruffetti, mixes “The Little Mermaid” with “Baywatch.”

As strange as that sounds, it works, portraying the agony of newly gained limbs and the frustration that slowly builds towards an increasingly extreme gesture.

The anthology ends with “Number 43,” written by Domiziano Cristopharo and directed by Adam Ford.

We are catapulted into a surreal tale where a man finds himself lying on a dark floor, surrounded by his wife’s ghost dancing around him, creating an intimate and cryptic fantasy of mourning and cannibalism.

“Toe Tags” is an anthology about feet, fetishism, and hatred, and once again pushes against societal norms.

While less ethically extreme in its themes than Cristopharo and Devlin’s previous works “Phallacies” and “Analogies,” it offers a varied blend of underground cinema, melancholia, drama and visceral blood-soaked horror.

Like in a morgue where every corpse has its own toe tag, each segment explores a different human connection with feet, which become symbols that can mean fascination, obsession, grief or pure disgust.

Not every segment lands with the same impact, but together they form an interesting collection that fans of unconventional horror are likely to appreciate.

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Dagon Films