Broken Heel

These shoes weren't made for walking.

"There's no sense in you trying to run for it, really. You'll get ten feet, and run into a branch, or stumble over a root. "

— Jackson, Unmasked Part 25

Any minor obstacle which causes a fleeing victim to fall or become slowed to allow a pursuer a better chance to catch up — a broken shoe heel, a tree root, a twisted ankle, a car that won't start, etc.

This trope dates back to the early days of movie-making and more often involves female characters, although males also had to be slowed down for some monsters. Frankenstein and the '40s-era mummy movies both featured monstrous characters unable to move faster than a walking pace. While the Frankenstein movies were usually well-made enough so that the inability of human characters to run away from the monster might not be noticed there were often scenes in films in which characters would run, run a bit more, and even enter a building and lock doors, and still inexplicably find the creature following right behind them and able to throttle them before they could sound an alarm or make a phone call.

In movies of the '20s and '30s, the Damsel in Distress could simply simper, act dizzy, and faint to let monsters catch up. The '50s were the heyday of wearing narrow-hemmed long skirts with spike heels. In these situations, moving over anything but smooth floors was difficult for the actress, so having her stumble, stagger, and trip over outdoor terrain made sense. Unless, of course, you asked why on Earth she would dress like that while investigating a potentially dangerous situation out of doors.

In modern horror films, "broken heel" situations tend to stand out more, as they have to be coupled with a communications blackout. That is, to be isolated enough for the monster to prey on them, the hapless quasi-teens have to be kept from running away, calling out on their cell phones, or flagging down a ride. In movies following the Friday the 13th stereotype, most of the plot beyond the monster's actual attacks often revolves around explaining the victim's isolation or watching the victim's attempts to break it in some manner. When the scriptwriter is desperate enough, Jason, Pumpkinhead, etc. will often just show up in front of the character for no reason other than that destiny (or the plot) demands it. This will even happen to a character who has been running directly away from the killer for several minutes.

Specific variations: Twisted Ankle, My Car Hates Me, Dramatic Slip, Dangerous Key Fumble. Help, I'm Stuck! is a similar situation where a character (otherwise able-bodied) is trapped in place directly in the path of some hazard and must be rescued. Sometimes overlaps with High Heel Hurt.

See also: Offscreen Teleportation.

Unrelated to Heel or Villainous Breakdown.

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Examples:

Advertising

• Nike averted this trope in a commercial once (an athlete escapes chainsaw-wielding killer by outrunning him), and Moral Guardians complained because the girl was in her underwear.
  • Seanbaby elaborates.

Anime & Manga

• A variation happens in One Piece, where Vivi's search for a Time Bomb that's about to explode is slowed down by one of her sandals breaking into pieces. She falls down and the other one slips off. Vivi can't use the ruined pair anymore and has to keep going barefoot.
• In Shakugan no Shana, Yoshida's sandals break. She discards them and keeps running.
• Happens to Kyoko in Heat Guy J, when she disguises herself as a rich Daddy's Girl who's going to the casino to gamble, so she can slip inside and rescue Daisuke, who's being held hostage by Clair.
• Played for comedy in SPY×FAMILY where a drunken Yor is fighting Loid well enough to potentially kill him, in heels...until the heel on one of her boots snaps, she trips, and upon falling over falls asleep from all the alcohol.

Comic Books

• There's a story where The Joker is well ahead of Batman as he runs from his abandoned Evil Lair, but a previous plot point has established that the beach onto which they're running is covered in oil. The Joker overcomes this, despite slipping a few times, and makes it to the Batmobile, planning to escape Batman in his own car. The car, however, won't start, and Batman catches up. Once he has the Joker in custody, Batman reveals that there's a hidden mechanism involved in starting the thing - there's some sort of mechanism attached to the radio which has to be set to read "BATMAN" before the car will start. Clearly, this was something he put in before this one story before dismissing it as too impractical, because how else would he start the damn thing so quickly in other stories? And Batman immediately tells the Joker all about his security system and how to bypass it.
• In an issue of Gargoyles (Marvel) a 1995 out-of-canon spin off of animated show Gargoyles there is a subversion of this, when Detective Eliza Maza goes undercover as a prostitute to bring down a killer who targets sex-workers she actually holds her own despite one the heels on her boots being broken and him knocking her gun away from her. Eventually he does manage to wrestle her to the floor, however she manages to reach for the broken heel and use it as makeshift knuckle-duster to punch him in the face and get him off her.

Comic Strips

• A couple of Mother Goose and Grimm comics had Grimm musing to Atilla about how women keep falling over him. Atilla then holds out a broken shoe heel and tells Grimm that it's because he kept chewing the heels off their shoes.

Films — Live-Action

• Lampshaded in Diary of the Dead when they're filming a horror B-Movie with a mummy chasing a Damsel in Distress. Later the actress is being chased by a zombie and she stumbles after her heel breaks for real. However instead of being killed by the zombie she just gets angry, throws her shoes at the cameraman (who is filming instead of helping her), knocks out the zombie herself, then abandons the cameraman to his fate.
• Proper example from Friday the 13th films is Pam from Part V, as she is shown slipping on the mud when she's on the run.
• Red Eye:
  • Used straight in the airport scene of where Rachel McAdams' high heels cause her to fall over in the terminal while fleeing said psycho. Of course, said heels don't actually break, allowing for heel-based pawnage to occur. Why she was trying to outrun a psychotic terrorist in high heels is another matter.
  • Happens again when Jackson is chasing Lisa through her father's house. This time, the heel actually breaks, and she stabs him with it.
• This was commented on by Mike Nelson in his commentary for Night of the Living Dead (1968).
• The Scary Movie series parodies this very liberally, with characters are tripping over everything dozens of times inside of 3 yards' distance.
• The zombie flick Raiders of the Damned has a (barely) interesting male version. The beeftastic hero is running away from the zombies towards some kind of teleport thingy (the movie isn't really clear about it) that is going to close. He trips on a blade of grass and, rather than getting back up and running even faster, he continues forward on his belly. He doesn't make it and gets munched. And there was much rejoicing.
• Inverted in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) remake. Erin has no trouble getting past a barbed wire fence while Leatherface trips and gets tangled in it.
• Subverted in Club Dread, where a female character struggles to get a golf cart started, and then does — only to discover it's so slow that the killer just has to walk a little faster to catch her.
• Subverted in Zombieland: When the ridiculously savvy Columbus drops his keys while trying to get into his car, he merely runs another lap around to get more distance between the zombies chasing him ("Cardio" being Rule #1 for him) and try again (only to learn that the car was unlocked anyways).
• Apparently subverted then inverted quite neatly in Batman (1989), when the Joker makes hostage Vicki Vale take off her high heels to subvert this as they both ascend to the eventual Climbing Climax at the top of the very, very tall Gotham Cathedral. The inversion is that because her heels were slowing her down until the Joker got rid of them, it was the hero who gained ground.
  • Lampshaded in the film's comic-adaptation, where the Joker tells Vicki "You'll move faster without the heels" while forcibly removing her shoes.
• In the 2009 Syfy Original B-Movie Infestation, while hiding from the giant insects in a mall, Sara finds some sneakers and hands them to Cindy. Sara explains this trope and asks her to replace her high heels with the sneakers. Cindy refuses her advice, but surprisingly, she doesn't suffer a problem related to this trope, later.
• Averted in Romancing the Stone, in which heroine Joan Wilder does this once, leading grizzled hero Jack Colton to grab her shoes and remove the heels. With a machete.
  Joan: Is nothing I own sacred to you? Those were Italian!
  Jack: Now they're practical.
  • Which is major Fridge Logic for those who know the engineering of high heels. If you tried to wear them sans heel you'd be walking around with your toes pointed nearly 90 degrees straight up.
• Happens to Bonnie at the end of The Player as part of her Humiliation Conga when she's fired from the studio.
• Neatly defied in The Relic when the heroine, dressed for a fancy museum reception in a gown and heels, realizes she's been locked in a wing of the building with the monster and promptly removes her high-heeled shoes to go in just stockings.
• Likewise defied in "Crocodile" Dundee when the character Sue, trying to catch up to Dundee before he gets on a subway, is slowed by her high heels. She takes them off, tosses them away, and starts sprinting.
• In Scarecrow Slayer, Mary sprains her ankle when she falls out of the frat house while attempting to escape the Scarecrow.
• Siren (2010): Late in the film when Ken and Rachel are fleeing from Silka, Ken steps in what appears to be a shallow mud puddle. However, he then finds his foot is stuck and cannot be released: part of the magic of the island.
• The source of much derision in Jurassic World, where it's possible to outrun a T Rex in heels.
• In Act of Vengeance, Karen breaks a heel while the Squad are searching the zoo, causing her to become separated from the others and easy prey for Jack.

Literature

• Played with in the Discworld book Lords and Ladies, when Nanny Ogg remembers her youth, when she and Granny Weatherwax were being chased by men with...uh..."romantic" intentions across the fields: "She could outrun any man. Now me, I just tripped over the first old branch I came up to. Took me ages to find one, sometimes."
• The Famous Five: In Five Go Adventuring Again: As the children flee from the villains down the Secret Way, Anne trips on a stone, twists her ankle, and can only hobble along. George then uses Timmy to frighten the villains away, so that the others can get Anne to safety.
• Subverted in the novel Shadowman where, when female lead Lissa breaks her heel walking through a marsh, she simply throws them away (we then get a brief, but...uh, detailed description of how the marsh feels on her bare feet.
• Lampshaded and averted in M. T. Anderson's novel, He Laughed With His Other Mouths, in which Dolores Dash outsprints the monster pursuing her. She has "no interest in tripping on a branch and falling down. She had been on the cross-country running team in high school and college." In fact, the monster winds up tripping and falling, twice.
• Queens of Geek: In the in-universe film The Rising, Charlie's character Ava breaks her heel while running from zombies, and Reese's character Will helps her up.

Live-Action TV

• Inverted and spoofed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy is retreating from Glory, an enemy who is stronger than Buffy and yet looks like a fashionable young woman. While in pursuit Glory breaks a heel, stomps her foot in anger and brings the entire building down on her head, allowing Buffy to escape.
• Also spoofed in the BtVS spin-off Angel when Spike saves a Damsel in Distress from a vampire.
  Spike: I mean honestly, what kind of retard wears heels like that in a dark alley? Take two steps and break your bloody ankle.
  Woman in alley: (annoyed) I was just trying to get home.
  Spike: Well, get a cab, you moron!
• Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter in Doctor Who, has this happen to her a lot. Apparently, the Gallifreyian superior physiology doesn't include the ankles.
• A The Kids in the Hall sketch featured some teenagers who were attempting to run from some slow, lurching zombies where the female kept breaking her heel at inappropriate moments, removing the offending shoe, and then breaking a magically reappearing shoe again moments later.
• Land of the Lost (1974): Vital dropped items that had to be gone back for, and unexpected bottomless pits and the occasional Twisted Ankle were used to try to make the Sleestaks seem menacing, despite their clumsy motions and slow, tottering walk.
• On My Name Is Earl, Catalina takes Earl's car to her second job at Club Chubby's. She's late, so she drives too fast and ends up getting pulled over by the police. She hands them a blatantly fake driver's license. She tries to run away, but she had already changed into her go-go boots with high heels and stripper outfit. She's not able to run very fast, and has to hold her boobs while she runs, and ends up tripping over a crack in the sidewalk. She ends up getting deported back to Guadelatucky. Randy marries her to get her back to America.
• NCIS: In the Season 4 episode "Singled Out" Gibbs and McGee are at a crime scene figuring out what happened to a woman who had been seen in the back of an SUV, screaming for help. They find the abandoned SUV and figure that she opened the back and climbed out. On the ground nearby is a single high-heeled shoe. Gibbs tells McGee to keep an eye open for the other shoe. When they find it, McGee is puzzled:
  McGee: How did you know to look for it, Boss?
  Gibbs: Ever seen a woman try to walk in one high heel? Ain't pretty.
• The Ultraman Orb episode "The Demon Inside of Me" has Naomi leaving a botched bachelorette party and tripping on her way out, breaking her new heels along the way. In a huff, she then ditches her heels near an altar which is said to be the resting spot of the ancient vengeful Oni, Renki, which ends up absorbing the leftover anger from Naomi's heels and becoming a rampaging monster.

Video Games

• Super Smash Bros. Brawl:
  • Lucas in "Subspace Emissary", where he trips on a root while running away from the Pig King Statue, somehow managing to get his leg caught underneath it, but is saved in a Big Damn Heroes Moment by Ness.
  • This can happen randomly to the player (and theoretically the computer), much to the annoyance of many people.
• Jesse of Avalanche in Final Fantasy VII trips and gets her foot stuck while trying to escape from the exploding reactor. Cloud stops to help her and they make it out right as the reactor explodes, even if the timer has not run out yet.
• In Valkyria Chronicles, Welken and Alicia are thrown off a cliff by an artillery bombardment and have to cross through enemy-held territory to rendezvous with their comrades. Unfortunately, Alicia twisted her ankle in the fall, which makes dodging the enemy's patrols and random mortar fire that much more difficult.
• The Pokémon move Grass Knot invokes this. It uses grass to trip the opponent. The amount of damage depends on the opponent's weight.

Web Comics

• The Order of the Stick Lampshaded in "Nightmare on Blue Street".
  Haley: I swear, if I randomly fall down and break the heel of my boot, I'm going to find Wes Craven and kick his ass.
• Parodied by Sluggy Freelance, where the girl running through the woods in heels in a Slasher Movie parody trips over logs and rocks repeatedly, and then one of her friends trips her just for laughs.
• Happens to Endorsi from Tower of God twice during fights, which always causes her a big disadvantage, and at one point, it was intended by her attacker. After that, she stopped wearing high-heels.

Web Original

• From the SCP Foundation, SCP-450 acts specifically to kill you in a broken heel situation.

Western Animation

• Lampshaded in The Angry Beavers Halloween special. The beavers and Toluca Lake are fleeing monsters when she falls over and breaks an ankle. A few seconds later, she breaks her other ankle, and finally breaks both of her ankles again.
  Daggett: Why don't we just cut the darn things off?!
• From the She-Ra: Princess of Power pilot film, The Secret of the Sword, while running from a monster, Bo trips over a vine (root?). Interesting how this plays out almost like if he were a girl (the more classic scenario), including how he just lies there waiting to get rescued instead of trying to get up and keep running. Although technically, the monster just offscreen teleported to in front of him anyway, so maybe he thought it was useless by that point to run anywhere.

Real Life

• Rings were issued to spies which had a small sharp hook for slashing tires. You presumably wouldn't have time to slash more than one if you were being chased, but it would buy time.
• During WW2, SOE agent Violette Szabo damaged her ankle during parachute training. The ankle gave out again while her Resistance group was being pursued by German soldiers, leading to her capture.

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