Your Head A Splode / Live-Action Films

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Heads blowing up in live-action films.

As this is (obviously) a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

• 30 Days of Night: When Eben punches out Marlow. One vampire's head gets blown off by a shotgun blast and (apparently) killed earlier too.
• Alien:
  • Alien heads asplode quite a bit in Aliens. It's a serious plot point because their spraying acid blood kills or injures several of the Marines. It's also not Ludicrous Gibs in this case, as Lt. Gorman explains that the Marines' pulse rifles fire "10-millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing round."
  • Meanwhile, the prequel Prometheus has the already-severed head of a dead Engineer suddenly spasm madly before exploding into a gooey mess when the scientists restart its biological processes (said explosion occurs as a result of the bioweapon it had been infected with prior to death).
• In Alien 2: On Earth, a side effect of the rock creatures' reproductive methods is causing the victims' heads to explode.
• The Babysitter (2017): Allison's death happens when Bee blasts the back of her head with a shotgun. Bee herself is shocked that Allison's head actually exploded.
• Battlefield Earth: Big Bad Terl attaches an explosive collar to a man's neck and blows his head off. Thankfully, we get a Gory Discretion Shot.
• The Battle Wizard: In the final battle, the hero, Tuan-Yu, manages to overload his chi into The Dragon, causing his entire cranium to blow apart.
• During the climactic scenes in Bite, Jared stomps on the mutated Casey's head, which explodes into green goo.
• Blade Trilogy:
  • Blade (1998) has Blade using an anticoagulant that reacts violently with vampire blood. The area hit by the syringe swells and then explodes — and he does it on the neck of an enemy, causing the head to explode.
  • In Blade II, Blade sticks an explosive device onto an uncooperative bad guy's head. While the Chekhov's Gun does not go off while attached to said head, it's a big enough bomb that when it does, the person holding it (including his head), explodes.
• Body Melt has a rare inversion of the trope, when Shaan, one half of the film's Big Bad Duumvirate, is found by one of the few survivors with her face partially melted as the result of the sabotaged super-vitamins that the plot focuses around. After Shaan mumbles a few things incoherently, the survivor tries to get her attention by slapping her around the face, which causes her head to implode and collapse in on itself.
• The titular character from The Butcher (2009) graphically explodes a mook's head during a shootout, via shotgun to the noggin' from point-blank range.
• Cabin by the Lake: Subverted in Return to Cabin by the Lake. Villain Protagonist Stanley sticks a firecracker into someone's ear as an Ironic Echo to a comment the guy made earlier about "lighting a firecracker under your ass". He puts it out just before it goes off, but he buries the man alive instead while lighting fireworks on top of his casket.
• This is how Chucky meets his end in Child's Play 2 after getting covered in melted plastic Kyle sticks an air hose in his mouth causing his head to inflate and explode.
• Chopping Mall: Leslie goes out this way courtesy of a Killer Robot's Frickin' Laser Beams.
• Con Air: While not actually seen a-sploding, one must imagine this happened to Cyrus at the end when a conveyor belt takes him underneath a rock crusher.
• Both Dawn of the Dead (1978) and its remake feature memorable "shotgun blast to the head" scenes, although in very different contexts. The head splosion in the original was one of the first live-action attempts at the trope (achieved with various... organs).^note It was a case of Throw It In, since the head was a mold of Gaylen Ross, and they decided not to kill her off (with her head being sliced in half by helicopter rotary blades.)
• Dawning of the Dead: In one scene, someone shoots a zombie in the head, causing it to explode.
• Daybreakers features a scene in which an individual reacts poorly to an experimental serum. After some brief Body Horror and vomiting as the Vampire Paramedics frantically try to save his life, he finally seems to settle... before his head violently explodes.
• Early on in Dead Birds, one of the bankers is shot in the head, causing his head to vanish down to the lower jaw.
• Deadball: When Jubeh kills Frau Ishihara the second time, he hits her in the head with a baseball pitched with enough force that it makes her head explode.
• A particularly awesome head asplosion occurs in Deadly Friend when a cybernetically resurrected Kristy Swanson kills the obnoxious old lady neighbor with a thrown basketball.
• In Death Spa, vengeful ghost Catherine causes Amoral Attorney Tom's head to explode while he is in the sauna.
• District 9 has at least one guy losing his head to a snazzy special effects explosion. Also, the Nigerian boss gets his head impaled with a metal bar, that then gets electrified, causing a messy explosion.
• In Dobermann, the Abbot shoves a grenade inside the crash helmet of the police officer who killed Pitbull's dog. He and then Leo then shove the unfortunate officer out of the car, where he struggles in vain to remove the helmet before his head explodes.
• Dogma: Any human who hears God's voice suffers this fate. According to Metatron, "We went through five Adams before we figured that one out," resulting in an angel getting the job of speaking to humans for God. The Metatron later notes a human is immune if the human is already dead.
• One scene in Drive (2011) has Blanche's head being blown to bits, her brains splattering all over the bathroom.
• Dust Devil: This is how Wendy kills the Dust Devil's host.
• Eastern Condors: During one of the fight scenes, a Vietnamese soldier has a live grenade shoved into his mouth and the pin pulled: with predictable results.
• Happens to Trantor the troll in Ernest Scared Stupid after Ernest shows him the love and innocence of a child.
• In Evil Dead 2, Ash steps on the neck of a wounded Deadite then proceeds to give it a point blank shotgun blast. Considering that it's a Deadite, there is no need to mention the resulting copious gore.
  Deadite: I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!
  Ash: Swallow this.
• In The Fly II, The Dragon's second-in-command is flung under a descending elevator, which crushes his body. The edge catches the back of his skull, causing it to rupture messily.
• In Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, a random teen dies this way, because he is wearing a hearing aid that magnifies sound so much your head explodes when you hear a normal volume sound. Robert Englund cites this as one of his favorite deaths, saying that in today's climate, it's good to know that Freddy'll even kill the Token Minority.
• In Fury (2014), one unfortunate soldier is killed when he peeks out of his tank and is shot in the head with a shell from another tank causing his head to explode.
• Inverted in The Fury; one character is blown up with Psychic Powers, and everything but the head explodes.
• In Full Metal Jacket, Private Pyle becomes deranged after the abuse he endured from his fellow privates and murders his own sergeant with a loaded rifle. Realizing what now awaits him for his crime, he takes his rifle and shoots himself in the mouth, spraying blood and brains all over the washroom walls.
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: Along with Eye Scream, this is one of the best ways to dispatch Viper Commandos or Neo-Vipers. Scarlett's exploding arrow went through a Viper Commando's eye before blowing his head up, and Heavy Duty jams a grenade in a Neo-Viper's neck guard to do away with his head. OWCH. During the Paris chase, Scarlett targets an unarmored Neo-Viper in the head too, suggesting this is her preferred M.O.
• In Glory, this happens to a Union Army Red Shirt at the Battle of Antietam, who takes a direct hit from artillery.
• In Gremlins (1984), this happens to a gremlin when Lynn stuffs it into the microwave and turns it on.
• Halloween:
  • In Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Michael knifes jerkass dad John Strode onto a fuse box, electrocuting him to the point where he starts foaming at the mouth before his head blows up.
  • In Halloween (2018), when Michael's doctor goes insane in his attempt to pin down what makes him tick, Michael catches up to him and stomps his head into a pile of goo.
• Hawken's Breed: When Hawken is hiding inside a hollow log, one of Hickman's sons sticks his head inside looking for him. Hawken shoots him in the head at close range with a rifle, and his head is shown flying apart.
• In The Hills Have Eyes (2006), we are treated to a very graphic shotgun suicide. On the potty, no less.
• The Horror Show: After Prof. Campell's severed head reminds Lucas how to defeat Jenke, it explodes.
• In High Life, a character accidentally flies her spacecraft into a black hole and endures spaghettification. First we see her looking stressed, then her spacecraft and her lower limbs start to stretch away from her as she gasps with pain, then she starts bleeding from the nose and eyes, making increasingly agonised gasps, and when we last see her face it looks horrifically distorted, with her eyes rolled up and blood pouring from her mouth, nose and eyes, before her helmet faceplate turns opaque as the inside of it is splattered with gore.
• Spoofed in Hot Fuzz: in an early scene with Angel giving a presentation to some school kids, he asks for questions. The only hand raised is that of his partner, who asks, "Is it true that there is a place in a man's head that, if you shoot it, it will blow up?" Our hero is not amused. DVD extra Fuzz Facts states that they were unable to find such a place on the human head.
• Immortals does this a lot, especially when the Gods fight the Heraklions and Titans.
• In Bruges: Referenced when Harry is offered dum-dum bullets, "the bullets that make the head explode", and takes them like someone on a diet would accept chocolate cake: "I know I shouldn't... but I will." Even professional hitmen can't resist the awesome of Your Head A-Splode, apparently. (But they really should.)
• Indiana Jones:
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark: When René Belloq and his Nazi company open the Ark of the Covenant, he is subject to the wrath of God first-hand as he is wreathed in flame from the Ark, screaming his lungs out before his head violently bursts. The flames were added to obscure him partially to prevent Raiders from receiving an R-rating (PG-13 had yet to be thought of at the time), despite the equally gruesome deaths of Herman Dietrich (whose head was shriveled and collapsed) and Arnold Toht (whose face was literally melted and was arguably more graphic) being shown uncensored.
  • Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Spalko's "gift" from the aliens overloads her brain, and fire spews out of her face before she is vaporized completely.
• In Innerspace, there is a scene where Jack Putter, while disguised as the Cowboy (thanks to a Magic Plastic Surgery disguise), faces the possibility of not just any pain but propane. This results in him freaking out, which causes his head to expand and distort greatly, looking like it could explode. Luckily, it doesn't, but his cover is blown wide open when this reverts his face back to normal.
• The sharks' deaths in Jaws and Jaws 3-D fit this trope, as both animals chew on something that explodes in their mouths.
• This happens in Kick-Ass as a man is locked in an industrial microwave.
• Done with Professor Arnold early on in Kingsman: The Secret Service, and then later with all of Valentine's soldiers, party guests, and most of the heads of government due to the chips in their necks overheating and exploding after Merlin hacks them.
• The Last House on the Left, or at least the remake, ends on this note.
• In Leonard Part 6, the titular hero offs one of the vegetarian bad guys in such a manner — by feeding him a cold hot dog.
• In Licence to Kill, Big Bad Sanchez discovers that one of his associates Kraver has about $5 million in cash hidden in a decompression chamber aboard a ship he owns. Enraged by the apparent double-cross of their joint drug venture, he forces Kraver into it before locking him inside and turning up the pressure, then taking an axe and cutting the hose providing the air, causing the pressure inside the chamber to drop rapidly and making Kraver's head experience Explosive Decompression. Afterwards, one of Sanchez's Mooks asks what to do with the blood-and-gore-splattered money that is in the chamber with Kraver.
  Sanchez: Launder it.
• Little Dead Rotting Hood: During a shoot-out in the middle of the movie, we're treated to a shot of a wolf's head bursting into Ludicrous Gibs.
• In The Lost Boys, the vampire gang member Dwayne is killed when he's shot in the head with a holy water-tipped arrow by Michael, it causes him to go flying into an amplifier which electrocutes him and causes his head to explode.
• In the most infamous scene from Maniac! (1980), psycho killer Frank attacks a couple making out in a car and shoots the male (played by Tom Savini, who was also in charge of the effects) in the face at close range with a double-barrel shotgun, blowing his brains all over the car and his poor date.
• The Man Who Saves the World: During the middle of a fight, the protagonist rips off a toilet paper mummy's head with his hands and throws it at other mummies, making the head go boom.
• The Georges Méliès film The Man with the Rubber Head (made in 1901) provides a classically oddball example: Méliès makes a living clone of his own head by means that remain unexplained and blows it up to ginormous dimensions, only to see it literally blow up.
• In Mars Attacks!, the Martians' heads explode when exposed to the song "Indian Love Call".
• Max Headroom, as mentioned under Live Action TV, which is what causes the problem in the film as well.
• In Men in Black (1997), Agent K shoots the normal-seeming pawn shop owner Jack Jeebs in the head, causing this; turns out Jeebs is an alien, and gets better. It's implied that this is the routine for the two. Men in Black II also implies that every time he does this, the head comes back a little... off.
• Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight II: In Adas' Dream Sequence at the start of the movie, Adas shoots the first killer ballroom dancer in the head, causing it to explode.
• Happens in The Patriot (2000) by means of a cannonball to the face.
• The Prowler ends with the villain getting a point-blank shotgun blast to the face, blowing his head completely apart in an extremely messy manner. Of note, Tom Savini has referred to this movie as being one of his finest works.
• When being burned at the stake in The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Esmeralda's head explodes because she is holding a mouthful of gunpowder.
• Pulp Fiction: "Oh, man, I Just Shot Marvin in the Face!" Oddly, if freeze-framed, Marvin's (relatively intact) head can be seen in the trunk later.
• Happens a LOT in Punisher: War Zone — and A LOT of it is so over the top, that it's more funny than gory or shocking (he just punches someone and it happens), considering they were aiming to go darker, this is somewhat amusing.
• The Quick and the Dead: Sgt. Cantrell's head doesn't exactly a splode, but what's left can't be structurally sound.
• In Rambo IV, the first death via Rambo and his new M2 Browning is the driver of the truck it's mounted on. He gets off around 25-30 shots at point-blank range into the guy's head. The next shot is of a waterfall of brains, bone, and blood pouring down the gun's shield. A later shot has what's left of the driver's torso sliding out of the truck like a giant, bloody cigar butt. Rambo doesn't stop at mere head explosions.
• Jen suffers this at least twice in Revenge (2017), courtesy of point-blank shotgun blasts to the face. Fortunately for her, it was All Just A Bad Peyote Trip.
• This is how the sentient telekinetic car tire kills people in Rubber.
• The Running Man (1987): Prisoners wear neck collars which, when activated by a sensor perimeter, explode. It happens to Chico when he mistakenly thinks the perimeter's been shut down.
• In Saw III, one of the characters spends most of the movie with a makeshift device made out of shotgun shells attached to her neck which will detonate if the evil mastermind dies. This kinda sucks since he has terminal cancer. Mercifully, she's offscreen when it eventually does go off, but the ruined stump left in place of her neck afterward is horrifying enough.
• Scanners famously blows up a man's head around the beginning as a particularly bitchin' Kick the Dog moment for villain Darryl Revok. Made even more awesome when you know how they did it: nothing fancy at all — just a fake head filled with various substances (including dog food and rabbit livers) and a twelve-gauge shotgun aimed at the back of its neck! So now you know exactly what happens to a human head when hit point blank by a shotgun...
• In Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, Augie's doorknob-launching air cannon inflicts this trope upon a row of three zombies in one shot, seriously impressing his fellow Scouts. Also to a bunch more individual undead, at least until it runs out of ammo.
• In Billy's proposed ending, this happens to Charlie in Seven Psychopaths (see page quote).
• Shooter: When the assassination takes place, the target is shot with a .50 cal sniper rifle from over a mile away, and we get to watch the head a-splodin' through the crosshairs. It's a good-and-gory splatter, but even then, it wasn't as bad as what would have happened in Real Life.
• Sin City:
  • Dwight tosses Jackie Boy's head into a crowd of "bad guys". The head has a grenade taped inside. It asplodes.
  • Also, John Hartigan does this to Roark Jr with his bare fists.
• Spy Hard: It's a well-known fact that during the singing of Thunderball (1965), the high note at the end caused Tom Jones to faint. "Weird Al" Yankovic parodies this in the title sequence when the high note at the end causes his head to explode!
• The Brain Bug in Starship Troopers 3: Marauder manages to do this to all of the non-plot-critical characters in the room with it when the human military leaders go to examine footage of Anoke talking to it by squealing.
• In Star Trek Into Darkness, Harrison likes to crush his enemies' skulls with his bare hands.
• The Street Fighter has a particularly unintentionally-hilarious example. Takuma Tsurugi sneaks onto the Big Bad's boat at night, grapples with one of his Mooks, and ends up by throwing him about all of six feet down to a lower deck. The henchman's head reacts to contacting the said deck by exploding violently in what looks like it took a full gallon of red poster paint to achieve.
• In Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Jack Black blows someone's mind in his dream with The Power of Rock.
  Jables: I did not mean!
  Kage: He did not mean...
  Jables: To blow your mind!
  Kage: To blow your mind!
  Jables: But that shit happens to me all the tiiiiime!
• They Call Me Bruce: The Mafia asks a Nightmare Fetishist hitman how he plans to kill Bruce. After demonstrating various methods on a store dummy, the silenced pistol with explosive bullets that blows up its head gets their unanimous approval.
• Three Kings: There's a flashback scene where a man's head is shown popping off. This is done for comedic effect.
• In Total Recall (1990), the exploding head is a bomb-rigged animatronic prosthesis which Quaid wears as part of a costume. His deception uncovered, he tosses the head to his pursuers, in whose hands it cracks wise and then asplodes. Later, the thin Martian atmosphere causes one bad guy's head to asplode (unfortunately offscreen). Arnie and his gal narrowly avoid the same fate.
• In Transformers: Dark of the Moon, this is how Starscream meets his end — from Sam, of all people.
• Trench 11: The German who takes a point-blank shotgun blast to the head.
• Turkey Shoot: In the 2014 film, the Libyan dictator's head is absolutely destroyed by the rifle bullet which hits him.
• Undercover Brother 2: Overdosing on Woke AF causes this, first with Manson when he drinks two at ounce in a brandy glass, and later with a random goon that gets thrown in a vat of Woke AF-infused coffee.
• Underworld: Selene pulls a Wrestler in All of Us move on an unfortunate lycan. After slamming him to the ground, she fires two pistol shots into his face, obliterating everything above the upper jaw in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it-moment. The special effects for the head are quite detailed, making the quick cutting away egregious.
• In the 1987 movie Wanted: Dead or Alive, Bounty Hunter Nick Randall, played by Rutger Hauer, brings Malak Al-Rahim, a Middle Eastern Terrorist who killed his best friend and his girlfriend, back to his employers with a grenade jammed in his mouth. He's being paid a bonus to bring the guy in alive, but ultimately decides "Fuck the bonus," just before pulling the pin and leaving him to die an explosive death.
• Wedlock features explosive collars used instead of fences at a futuristic prison.
• In Willow (1988), Madmartigan stabs his sword into one head of the two-headed Eborsisk from under the jaw, pinning its mouth closed. The injured head explodes when it tries to breathe fire at him again, killing the monster.