10 Creative Weapons That Slay

Get ready for some of the most bizarre, brutal, and unforgettable weapons ever wielded on screen, from boomerangs to butcher’s hammers.

Knives, axes, and guns… how boring! The list of weapons used in horror films is extensive and varied, but we mostly stick to the usual suspects when it comes to taking out victims. I started searching for the more creative, brutal killing tools used in horror that pack a punch while taking you off guard with their unique capabilities, and how each killer handles them.

Some may seem a little straightforward, but when confronted, how often does one see a butcher hammer on the subway with the strength and accuracy to deal such damage? The others, like the question of how one can swallow a cell phone, are more surprising.

From logging machinery to children’s toys, here are ten distinctive weapons used in horror films with splattering, effective results.

Super Soakers and Jackhammer Stakes: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

From Dusk Till Dawn is an undeniably fun ride from start to finish.

The Gecko brothers, wanted fugitives, are on the run south where they take up refuge in a shady biker bar. Unwelcome there, the pair soon realize the joint is infested with vampires that will have them out either dead or joined in among their ranks. As a group of survivors, some dying, barricade themselves in a store room, and they estimate they will have only half an hour to prepare for the vampire siege.

The room is stuffed with crates of all kinds, and the Gecko brothers postulate that since the place has been feeding off of truckers and travelers for years, this must be the remaining cargo.

Though most of it seems useless, one of the survivors makes what looks like Molotov cocktails out of condoms and a holy water super soaker prepared for maximum soakage. Meanwhile, Gecko has found himself some heavy machinery, which he’s rigged a large, sharpened stake to, the mechanism moving the stake in and out like a jackhammer.

When the horde finally approaches, they’re met with some firepower geared for the supernatural, with holy water scorching flesh and the stake hammer gutting hearts.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Microwave: Last House on the Left (2009)

I hate to say it, but some people really have it coming.

A remake of the heartbreaking 1972 classic, this film was a brutal reimagining of a revenge tale as old as time. Finding their daughter who they believed to be out on a trip with a friend, ravaged, raped, and dying on their porch, two parents, the father a doctor, rush to save her life. What the two come to realize is that earlier in the evening, they let in a group of strangers needing shelter, and those strangers are the same ones who brutalized their daughter and left her for dead.

The story unwinds in a frenzy as the two parents systematically kill those who tried to kill their daughter, but the leader of this gang, when all is said and done, gets the most specialized punishment of all.

Awakening on a table and unable to move, the leader of the gang finds himself alone with the father, who informs him that with his surgical expertise, he has paralyzed the man, and he won’t be going anywhere. Lifting the doomed man’s head into a black box, it takes us a moment to recognize something that’s in almost all of our homes: a microwave.

With no door and expertly rigged, it is now a radiation chamber with the guilty man’s head in the center.

With a push of a button, I can describe how this scene ends with three words: sizzle and pop.

The Log Splitter: In a Violent Nature (2024)

A quiet, nearly peaceful feature, here we focus on the risen and mightily enraged walking corpse of Johnny.

Disturbed from his resting place by a grave robbery of a personal item, Johnny rises from his shallow grave to hunt down those that awoke him from his slumber. Throughout the film we have a steady measured pace as Johnny methodically stalks the group of campers, killing them in ruthless fashion and earning him a Fangoria Chainsaw Award from the fans that voted the film as having the best kill of the year.

That’s not the kill we are discussing, though.

(Fast forward to 4 minutes in to see this iconic kill; you’ll have to head to YouTube to watch this one.)

When Johnny finally reaches someone who will resist him, a ranger who remembers Johnny’s previous rampages, the ranger is prepared to take down the monster that has long terrorized the woods. But Johnny has a slow and terrible fate prepared for this would-be hero once the ranger is disarmed, abandoned, and manually paralyzed.

Clawing into the ranger’s flesh with the fireman hooks, Johnny drags him to a log splitter, first placing an arm inside. With no way to move, the ranger must have his limbs, and soon his head, slowly but forcefully severed with the industrial machinery.

We’ve seen plenty of messy wood chippers deaths but this is my first log splitter; precise, methodical, and above all, violent.

The Silver Boomerang: Blade (1998)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Blade and his handler Whistler (RIP Kris Kristofferson).

The pair is well known for crafting plenty of their own weapons to deal with the vampire plague engulfing their city, stealing and bartering where they can to get the rare and expensive materials to design their arsenals. From hyper velocity stake guns to mobile UV lights capable of burning with the power of the sun, Blade and Whistler have a nice operation set up for themselves, but one tool, which debuts in the opening of the film, is particularly interesting.

Run down by vampire security led by lackey Quinn, Blade is cornered in a meat-packing area and outnumbered. Pulling out what looks like a shining boomerang with two scythes instead of wooden ends, Quinn ducks, understanding the implications, and Blade whips the tool with fury, sending it flying in a perfect circle around the cylindrical room and back into his hand.

In the moment this blade travels and returns, it decapitates three guards, turning them to ash immediately.

A nifty tool that warrants a special occasion, the silver boomerang returns in the sequel to hunt down more undead foes and return to its master having tasted blood.

Propeller: Piranha 3D (2010)

The propeller is a killer in Piranha 3D, for a couple of key scenes.

The first, which I believe won the film the kill of the year, is the infamous scene where a fleeing beachgoer drives a boat through a crowd of people. Realizing his propeller is stuck, you’d think he might stop, but even seeing it is stuck on someone’s hair, the man continues. The result is a severe scalping no one could forget.

In terms of bang for your buck, though, “Ving Diesel” takes up a propeller separated from a boat, and gets to work making sushi. Knowing he’s only putting more blood in the water and can only buy so much time for those to get to shore, he slices and dices these mean little fish as fast as they can swim.

Unfortunately, it’s not a long-lasting weapon, and the piranha, as they’re known to, outnumber our hero.

This film, though, took the humble propeller and made sure to leave us with lasting impressions of how it can absolutely destroy you or anything you put to it. Swim safe, everyone.

Butcher’s Hammer: Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Midnight Meat Train was one of those strange little horror films that rolled through, shocked us, and went on its way, having pleased customers with its blood-stained offerings.

Based on a short story of the same name penned by Clive Barker, the film was peppered with an impressive list of stars, but the most impressive item in the film is the titular weapon: the gleaming silver butcher’s hammer. The premise of Midnight Meat Train involves a struggling photographer is pushed to his limits to capture grittier, more intense shots of the city at its ugliest, prompting him to encounter unsavory characters of all sorts, but none so frightening as The Butcher.

We watch countless passengers fall victim to the fearsome brutality of the shining metal hammer that can deliver a fatal blow with only a single hit.

Heads will spin or be lopped off entirely, skulls will cave, and blood will pool. His quick, efficient, and powerful movements with his tool showcase his skill at exterminating human life one strike at a time, making this incredibly large, heavy, and intimidating weapon a great entry.

We rarely see a specimen like The Butcher’s tool in action, crushing bone and pulping flesh as if the passengers were just another piece of cattle on the line.

Pogo Stick: Leprechaun (1993)

Perhaps, if not hands down, the silliest film and kill on the list, Leprechaun is nothing if not consistent.

Drawn over to the states by his stolen pot of gold, a murderous leprechaun followed a native Irishman to his home and killed his wife as revenge to get his treasure. Warding the creature off with a four-leaf clover, the man seals the creature in the box, but not before the leprechaun causes the man to have a fatal stroke. Years later and the farm house is being rented out by a family, and contracting is being done to restore the farm.

One of the workers, mistaking the cries of the leprechaun for a child, moves the clover, releasing it, and setting off a chain of murders, each more ridiculous than the last.

In a bid to get a gold coin back from a man, the leprechaun bites, tears, and attacks him, finally getting him onto the ground.

Stepping away briefly, the leprechaun returns with a pogo stick, bouncing merrily over to the immobilized man and beginning to pound on his chest cracking his ribs. As he bounces the leprechaun sings a song of some man playing pogo on a lung, a dead-on parody of whatever old tune he was chirping, but a horrific thing to watch play out none the less.

Crushed one pogo at a time is a most painful and… undignified way to go.

Arm Gun: Upgrade (2018)

Turning our own bodies into functioning weapons, Upgrade took the prosthetics game that films like Grindhouse thrived on, with dancer Cherry’s machine gun leg, and refined the model.

Gray is on a mission for revenge fueled by a mechanical bio-engine that is keeping his body moving in spite of paralyzing spinal damage. As he cuts his way through the underbelly of the city, he gains the attention of some former soldiers who are now among the ranks of the “upgraded.” The soldiers are now fully armed night and day without ever having to pick up a weapon.

With prosthetics and metal implants worked directly into human tissue, the men’s formerly unusable arms can be modified into fully working firearms discharging from the palm, with loading mechanisms available in the flesh on the forearm.

Taking this a step above merely fusing a weapon to the human body, these implants make the human body a weapon, creating a class of citizens that are dangerous beyond measure and have no issue flexing their metal and muscle against what they see as the substandard members of society.

Vagina Dentata: Teeth (2007)

Stemming from the age-old myth of “vagina dentata” springs the horror comedy Teeth. Our teeth are some of our oldest, most efficient weapons, and in this case, when put in the right place, can cause some serious damage.

Dawn is a spokesperson for an abstinence group, but one day at a meeting, she is introduced to a young man named Tobey. Though the two fight their feelings and attraction for some time, the pair gives in at a local swimming hole, where things become violent.

After rebuffing further advances from Tobey, he becomes aggressive towards Dawn, hitting her in the head, dazing her, as he prepares to assault her. However, as he attempts to, he finds his… member… severed off, blood spewing.

Though this could be considered a weapon, it is certainly a defense mechanism, meant to punish those trying to violate sacred space. It’s a hidden weapon few would dare risk life or limb for if the myths and tropes ring true.

Cell Phone: See No Evil (2006)

A slasher mixed up in the wrestling world, See No Evil was the first major film produced by WWE Entertainment starring wrestler Kane, also known as Glenn Jacobs.

A gory slasher that opens to plenty of dead bodies and the execution of an officer, we are joining a group of punks four years after the initial carnage as they clean up a hotel under officer supervision, supposedly turning it into a homeless shelter.

Over the course of the evening, the group comes under attack by Jacob Goodnight, a sadistic killer. Though he claims many lives, it’s his execution of Zoe with a mobile phone that is most memorable.

Almost having gotten away, Zoe’s cell phone rings, alerting Jacob to her location and giving him an unusual object to use. Lost in memory and trying to silence the phone and the screams, Jacob forces the phone down Zoe’s throat with a crunching wet sound, putting an end to her and the call.

Perhaps a weapon used to bludgeon someone over the head in a last-ditch struggle, but I’ve never seen a cell phone forced down a gullet in one agonizing, wretch-inducing swallow.