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It's only a [[Justified Trope]] when it's clear that the villain is of [[The Undead]] or [[Good Thing You Can Heal|they can recover even from continual abuse.]] Beware being [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]; whaling on a downed villain may seem to work, but he may get a sudden surge of energy or overcome his shock at being hit and [[Barehanded Blade Block|catch whatever weapon is being used.]]
Contrast [[Kick Them While They Are Down]], [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] and [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]], where the attacker doesn't let up, and the [[Coup De Grace]] and [[Double Tap]], where someone shoots an apparently dead enemy again just to make sure.
{{examples}}
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** Averted many times in ''[[Evil Dead]] 2''. Ash swings off the head of his girlfriend with a spade and then buries her. When she comes back he retaliates, with a chainsaw. Ash made a point of teaching everyone the lesson in time for ''[[Army of Darkness]]'':
{{quote|'''Ash:''' It's a trick; get an axe.}}
:*
* ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'' did it TWICE. Same girl, same killer, leaves him "dead" with his knife right next to him, and there can't have been more than five minutes between them.
** The reverse also happens in just about every movie in the series; they kill off Michael in some [[Made of Iron|increasingly ridiculous]] and stunningly final way, only to have him survive. At the end of the second one, he ''was actually intended to have died,'' but when the Michael-less third movie flopped (it's actually good, watch it), they had him come back in number four. And five. And six. For the record:
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*** ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]] 5'': At the beginning (yes, these two were consecutive too) he swims away and is taken in by a vagrant, who helps him recuperate. The end is [[Mind Screw|even weirder than that]], but it involves lots of bullets and no plot resolution.
*** ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]] 6'': At the end, Michael is stabbed with about a dozen syringes containing something that looks like ''antifreeze'' and it beaten over the head with a lead pipe '''until green slime is oozing out of every hole in his face.''' When the camera cuts back, he has vanished completely, despite apparently having no eyes or brain left. If it weren't for the [[Continuity Reboot]] he'd still be alive today.
*** He is most likely ''not'' alive today, because in ''[[Halloween Ends]]'', Michael's legs are crushed, he is stabbed multiple times in the chest, his throat and wrists are slit, his arms are broken, and finally, what's left of him is mulched by a car shredder. It seems ''finally'' the dreaded killer of this franchise has (as the title infers) been [[Killed Off For Real]].
** [[Word of God]] [[Retcon|eventually]] [[Ass Pull|declared]] that the villain isn't really Michael Meyers - it's pure evil in his form. Kill it all you like, it'll wake up eventually. There's a reason Michael's actor is always credited as playing "The Shape".
* In ''[[Red Eye (film)|Red Eye]]'', the protagonist continually tries to run away after a single blow. She succeeded in slowing him down temporarily, but that's all.
* Avoided in ''[[Sin City]]'', with the gruesome fate of that Yellow Bastard. Kevin gets a similar treatment, having {{spoiler|his limbs and head sawed off and his guts fed to a wolf.}}
* Being a send-up of slasher flicks, it happens multiple times in ''[[Scream (film)|Scream]]''. For example, the killer has a victim cornered in the garage. She manages to nail him with beer bottles and whomp him with a freezer door and he goes down. She then tries to squeeze through the dog door, with predictable results. Watching it just makes you want to yell, ''"Finish him off, you idiot!"''
* Averted, then played straight in ''The Hills Have Eyes 2''. They "kill
** And in the remake of the first one. The protagonist has just smashed the last mutant's head in, and blasted him repeatedly with a shotgun...and he still gets back up.
* Subverted in ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man]]'' during the wrestling match. Bonesaw gets a chair and repeatedly whacks Spidey over the head, pausing only to let him ''try'' to struggle to his feet, only to smack him down again. However, his ultimate mistake is stopping to go and get another weapon (a crowbar), giving Peter enough time to get his wits together and start counter attacking. Of course, having the proportionate strength and endurance of a spider helps, Bonesaw likely didn't figure that Pete would be able to take all that punishment and ''still'' be able to fight back.
* ''[[Star Wars
* The {{spoiler|last two deaths}} in ''[[Diary of the Dead]]'' are a direct result of this trope. Both the camera man and one of the woman knock down {{spoiler|their friend-turned-zombie}} when he's chasing the latter, hit him once on the head, and leave him there, despite the woman in particular {{spoiler|having been shown as perfectly able to finish off a friend-turned-zombie, her ''boyfriend'' no less}}. Naturally, the zombie gets back up, and eventually {{spoiler|knocks one of the characters into the bathtub with a hair-dryer, and takes a bite out of the camera man.}}
* Defied in ''[[Zombieland]]'', where the [[Genre Savvy]] Columbus makes a rule about "Double Tapping", IE shooting the zombies more than once and making sure they're dead.
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** Subverted at the end of "Shindig."
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' Claire at the beginning of Season 3 when Sylar tracks her down.
** And then her father, who {{spoiler|slits his throat when the powers are off}} and then just walks off. And then Claire again in the
** Also, Mohinder in season 1, who knocks him out by slamming a giant map into him. ''Awesome''. But then he just leaves him there, despite having shot him, point-blank, while he was helpless last time he had the chance. The fact that this didn't work really should have reinforced the necessity of doing it ''right'' this time.
* Subverted in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy vs. Dracula]]''. After Buffy stakes Dracula and everyone appears to leave the castle, Dracula regenerates from a mist - only to have Buffy immediately stake him again, saying, "[[Genre Savvy|You think I don't watch your movies?]] You ''always come back''." He tries to regenerate again, but disappears after she says, "I'm standing right here."
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* ''Lost'', multiple incidents. The characters know that humans are much more durable on the island. As such, they fail to make sure their enemies aren't going to come back.
* ''[[Little House on the Prairie (TV series)|Little House On the Prairie]]'': The 1981 episode "Sylvia," where the main character, a 15-year-old physically mature girl is raped by a masked assailant; she is impregnated as a result. Later, Sylvia's father is able to shoot the rapist ... but he only wounds him, and the rapist is able to get away, his fate left unknown.
== Mythology and Religion ==
* ''[[The Bible]]'': In 2 Kings 13, Elisha has Jehoash/Joash take arrows and strike the ground so that he may have victory over Aram/Syria. Joash strikes the ground thrice and then stops. Elisha scolds him for it, saying that if he had struck five or six times, he might have completely wiped out the Arameans, but as things stand, he will only defeat them thrice. This is exactly what happens.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
* During the pre-mid 1990s era, when wrestling operated as strict kayfabe and most wrestling programs consisted of several matches with established wrestlers taking on jobbers, promoters might turn an already imposing heel wrestler and turn him into an unstoppable monster by having him continue to physically punish a jobber long after scoring the victory. Often, this consisted of the heel using his finishing
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* In most of the ''[[Resident Evil]]'' games, zombies will eventually die for good if they take enough damage. However, in the [[Game Cube]] remake of the first game, while the zombies will eventually "die" after taking enough damage, if their heads aren't destroyed (or, failing that, if their corpses aren't [[Kill It with Fire|set alight]]), then their corpses don't simply disappear once the player leaves the room. Instead, they remain, and, after enough time has passed, they ''will'' come back to (un)life... [[Oh Crap|having mutated into the far deadlier Crimson Heads]].
* Spriggans in the ''Bloodmoon'' expansion to ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'' will come back to life not once, but ''twice'' if killed (put another way, you have to [[Rule of Three|kill them three times]] before they stay dead). [[Fridge Logic|Even if you use Soul Trap and capture their souls.]] This is changed in ''[[Oblivion]]'', where they instead [[Everything's Worse with Bears|summon bears]].
* In ''[[Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance]]'', once you get the [[Final Boss]] down to the last bit of health, a Blade Mode prompt appears. Unlike every other instance in the game, it is not enough to simply cut once; you must keep attacking until the game tells you otherwise, or else the boss will regenerate health and you'll have to deplete his health all over again.
== Webcomics ==
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' got {{spoiler|former military intelligence analyst}} who ended up on the wrong side of Schlock and used a [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2011-03-19 high-pressure fire hose].
{{quote|{{spoiler|Kathryn}}: If this was a monster movie, I'd run away in a panic [[Blob Monster|while you re-
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