13 Unconventional Murder Weapons

It’s another 13th of the month. Here’s our top 13 list of unconventional murder weapons. All contributions are by the staff and listed as such.

Deadly Friend

Death by Basketball

by Mike Hassler

Deadly Friend is not a good movie.  At all.  Wes Craven’s really hit or miss, in case you didn’t already realize this — for every Last House on the Left there’s a Vampire in Brooklyn, and for a Nightmare on Elm Street there’s a Shocker.  His 1986 cheese-tastic gem Deadly Friend is quite a fun watch just for it’s terrible nature.  The preposterous plot is of a young man implanting a computer chip into the girl next door’s brain which then gives her superpowers and causes her to go homicidal. The best moment?  When our cybernetically altered hottie Samantha (Kristy Swanson) chucks a basketball at Anne “Mama” Ramsey’s head, which literally shatters her skull on impact and paints the wall.  It’s the only moment anyone really remembers from this thing, and rightfully so.

Casino

Death by vice grip

by Mike Hassler

As a torture device throughout history, I’m sure the vice may have been utilized.  Cinematically though, not so much.  When Joe Pesci attempts a last ditch effort to get a name from a guy so swollen and roughed up that you’re convinced he doesn’t know, there’s the threat of popping his head like a grape.  Once that thing gets tightened and his eye leaves it’s socket, his skull cracking, he suddenly has a recollection!  Alas, It’s too late for him now.  Nothing touches how brutal and squirmy Martin Scorsese’s sequence is to this day, and the fact that it was included in the film in order for the MPAA to have something to distract them — yet was ignored by them — is all the more jaw dropping…or should I say eye popping?

Stitches

Death by Dishwasher

by Mike Hassler

Clowns scare some people, right?  I don’t understand it.  The kids at this birthday party sure aren’t frightened by Stitches (Ross Noble) at all.  Quite the opposite.  Drunk and late, much like the clown John Candy punches in Uncle Buck, Stitches fails miserably to amuse the children, who: heckle him, tie his shoes together, toss a ball at him while juggling, causing him to stumble back into the kitchen, trip, and land face first into a dishwasher’s utensil holder.  He staggers back up with a footlong butcher knife jabbed into his eye socket and through the top of his skull.  He pulls the knife out which sends a geyser of blood from the wound.  He then proceeds to slip on the blood, toss up the knife, land on his back, and have the knife return comfortably to the same hole it was retrieved from.  Leave the pointy sides DOWN, guys!

Se7en

Death by Penial Device

by C. Bryan Brown

Blades of all sorts have always been a popular killing tool. Jason, Michael, Ghost Face, and even Freddy all used these shiny, magniificently sharp objects to great success. They’ve hung people from doors, disembowled others, and made pretty little fireworks while scraping them along boiler room pipes. Blades are, it seems, the go to weapon of cinematic killers everywhere. But it’s not until mousy little John Doe (Spacey at his best) makes a hooker’s john wear a bladed strap-on that audiences begin to understand the future of horror. I’m pretty sure Jigsaw’s creator, Leigh Whannell, watched Se7en and said, “Holy shit, that’s brilliant. Crazy contraptions, choices, and death!” And even if he didn’t, the bladed strap-on certainly gives whole new meaning to the phrase “I fucked her to death.”

Maximum Overdrive

Death by Soda Machine

by C. Bryan Brown

It’s hard to imagine Stephen King writing anything normal, unless you count his forarys into non-fiction and even most of them are pretty off the wall. And yes, I’m including his book about the Boston Red Sox, too. In Maximum Overdrive, King adapts his own work (the short story Trucks) and directs it. He’s been quoted as saying “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.” Whether that’s a dig at anyone specific (looking at you, Stanley), we’ll probably never know. In this little diddy from Uncle Stevie, Earth is trapped in the tail of comet, which is in turn shielding aliens. While in the comet’s tail, machines come to life and start killing people. Most notably cars and trucks, but we also have an electric knife and a curling iron. But the best possession here goes to the ballfield soda machine. Soda cans are heavy and this machine spits them out at like a assault rifle. The first one to go is the coach, taking a cannonball to the balls and then a shot to the head. The can makes a perfectly round indentation in his forehead and there’s plenty of blood. You know how those head wounds bleed. Best part? His hands keep twitching like he’s had just a bit too much caffeine.

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

Death by Meat Grinder

by Chris Melkus

If you’ve never seen HK “martial arts” film Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky then not only do I pity you but anyone who attempts to describe it to you. Notice how I put “martial arts” in quotes up there? That’s because calling this a “martial arts” film is like calling Cronenberg’s The Fly a sci-fi film. Sure it is, but you’d definitely prefer to be notified that it’s a horror film too, unless you *like* nasty surprises. And, like The Fly, Riki-Oh is absolutely crammed with such things, all accompanied with the excessive spray of at least a quart of fake blood. You name it, this movie’s got it: instantaneous cranial compression, entrail-based strangulation, hideous mutant overlords, etc. Like Dead Alive, it continually surprises the audience by topping itself impossibly with every other fight scene. And yet, miraculously, the climactic battle manages to end with the most unforgettable kill off all: someone being forced into a massive meat grinder, legs first. It’s slow, it’s incredible messy and, perhaps most inappropriately, it’s HILARIOUS.

Super

Death by Pipe Wrench

by Chris Melkus

I chose this one not just because who kills someone with a pipe wrench? But also because it’s a film by Saint Louis-born James Gunn, whose Guardians Of The Galaxy lands theatrically on August 1st. Super, though, is probably about as far from “Guardians” as possible: it’s a whacked out satire of superhero culture, complete with gruesomely realistic deaths, of which there aren’t few. Some are so violently mundane (bashing someone’s head on a fireplace repeatedly, bullets, grenades, etc) that it’s shocking just to see such tedious fatalities given gruesome visuals. This goes especially for main character Frank Darbo’s distinctly dull-looking pipe wrench as the iconic weapon of his Crimson Bolt persona. When he (finally) puts the pipe wrench in action, it’s a shocking moment, because the victim doesn’t just collapse bloodlessly like you’d expect from a typical comedy. No, instead, blood explodes from his head, spattering innocent bystanders, and as he helplessly clutches his crushed cranium, screaming weakly, said bystanders just ignore him mostly as he slowly dies of massive head trauma. Though, really, the worst part of this whole thing is the NOISE the pipe wrench makes upon making contact with his melon. Oh, sure, the element of surprise/shock is at least partially to blame for how effective it is but trust me when I say that you’ll feel at least a little concern that someone was ACTUALLY struck with a blunt metal object on their head when you hear it.

Behind the Mask

Death by Cider Press

by Chris Melkus

There’s so many clever nods and subversions to classic horror in Behind the Mask, it’s practically required watching for anyone seeking a visual encapsulation of the slasher movie tradition. To say that there’s a myriad amount of clever executions is understating it because each one of those murders is a nod to ones from prior classics. The movie, despite its first hour of mostly bloodless comedy, pulls out all the stops in the last half hour, increasingly ratcheting up the gore and shock. This is actually in spite of a mediocre budget, being shot mostly as an indie horror flick. Yet, and this is something I’ve argued often, by saving the real slaughter for the last third of the film, it has a much bigger impact. Many complain about the “jarring” tonal shift from black comedy to bloodthirsty slasher but A) who said there were rules to making movies B) the film deftly foreshadows the incoming slaughter so, really, if you’re paying attention, you *know* what’s coming. But even the most jaded slasher fiend could predict the climactic execution by cider press. To give away how it happens and why would be spoiler territory but it works perfectly as the cherry on top of the stack of corpses.

Dead Alive

Death by Lawnmower

by Cherry Bombed

This is the second time in as many months that I have had the pleasure to extol the vomitus virtues of Peter Jackson’s splatter classic, Dead Alive, here at Destroy the Brain. And when it comes to weird murder weapons, a lawnmower is as about as unconventional as you can get. It’s rumored that Jackson used more than 1,000 gallons of chocolate syrup (dyed red) during filming, and I’m pretty sure that 999 of those gallons got used in one of the movie’s final scenes where Lionel becomes the Kiwi version of Ash, and sends dead body parts flying for nearly three minutes. He literally mows through a throng of zombies. It’s an unforgettable scene that you never saw coming.

Happy Birthday to Me

Death by Shish kebab

by Cherry Bombed

In 2012, a woman in Moscow stabbed another woman to death with a shish kebab skewer. But before that happened, in 1981, one of the more bizarro murder weapons used to murder an unsuspecting horny guy in a film was also a shish kebab. It all goes down in front of a fireplace as a nearly 18-year-old Virginia Wainrwight (who knew Melissa Sue Anderson had such a dark side?), decides that Steve (played by the awesome Matt Craven), should deep-throat the Shish Kebab skewer she’s been sexily feeding him. You know what’s coming. But it’s still wacko to watch it go down. See what I did there? *Choke*.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Death by Cotton Candy

by Cherry Bombed

Death by cotton candy! How can that be bad? Well, for starters, you’re dead, Jack. And second, it was a clown from outer space that did it. When it comes to horror films from the 80’s, directors never seemed to run out of weird ways to kill teenagers. Enter 1988’s bonafied kult classic, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and the sugary death ray guns the alien Klowns use to cocoon their victims, in cotton candy. We all know sugar is bad for you, but could it kill you? Stay away from the big top unless you want to find out, kids.

Wild Zero

Death by Guitar Picks

by Cherry Bombed

One of my favorite movies of all time is 1999’s Wild Zero. I know! You too, right? So many things make this movie great, the least of all being Tokyo’s almighty metal gods (and stars of the flick), Guitar Wolf. But it’s a scene featuring the mythical band when Seji (Guitar Wolf), wipes out a mob of zombies with guitar picks. Glowing, magical, guitar picks. Which proves once and for all that you might not be able to kill rock and roll, but rock and roll just might kill you!

Slumber Party Massacre II

Death by Guitar (with a drill bit on it)

by Cherry Bombed

Speaking of rock and roll maybe wanting to kill you, let’s head back to the 80’s again and discuss what might be the most metal murder weapon of all time: a guitar with a drill attached. Naturally, our victim du-jour didn’t remember one of the rules that help you not die in a horror film – don’t even try to have sex if it’s 1987. My favorite part of the scene is when the rockabilly bad guy holds the still-moving guitar drill, as entrails fly off. It truly gives new meaning to the words (by quoting the movie itself); “and now it’s time for the fun part”.