Remove the Head or Destroy the Brain

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If you kill the brain (Bang!) then you kill the ghoul (Bang!) and its motor functions! Aim for the head. —Creature Feature

Cut it out! Stop wasting your damn bullets, you jerks! You need to hit their heads! I told you! See, like this! (shoots zombie in the head) —Hell Of The Living Dead

To put down an undead creature for good, or else render it far more vulnerable, you usually have to Remove the Head or Destroy the Brain.

This is a trope commonly associated with (most) zombies and other forms of undead, much as a good stab in the heart is associated with (many) vampires. Fortunately, this also works on people who are not the walking dead, so you don't have to worry about it going out of fashion as a killing method - but it's the implication that nothing else will do the job that makes this different from Attack Its Weak Point (its subtrope/sister trope) and Boom! Headshot! (its other sister trope).

Take off a zombie's legs, and it'll drag its torso after you; take off the arms, and it'll still try to worm its way in your direction. Even dismemberment may not cut it completely - as long as the head's still around, that undead monster will still be moaning and groaning as it hops or rolls towards you. (And it may or may not be joined by the rest of its body parts! But once you pulp that noggin, its remains will promptly go inert and wither away... hopefully. Most songs about zombies tend to Lampshade this trope.

Skeletons generally subvert or avert this, as they lack a brain to destroy and are at the point where head removal wouldn't bother them short of a shattered skull - and sometimes not even then! Robots with a Cranial Processing Unit will have this as a weakness - those without (e.g., Starfish Robots) may still be able to function Depending on the Writer. There's also plenty of Non-Human Undead to confuse the issue further.

Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain mostly concerns undead. For non-undead targets, see Off with His Head - if you're considering this because there isn't any other way, see Decapitation Required. Using Your Head Asplode to kill undead foes technically fulfills the conditions.

Examples of Remove the Head or Destroy the Brain include:

Anime and Manga

• Played completely straight with Highschool of the Dead. Despite believing the entire situation to be insane, like something out of the movies, the characters rapidly adapt - those that don't get eaten.
• In Claymore, the Yoma's amazing Healing Factor makes a quick kill like this absolutely necessary - and even then, it's preferred to completely tear their corpses to bits. Ophelia lampshades this, telling the Awakened who breaks her neck that you need to behead Claymores to be sure.
• In Mermaid Saga, some people who eat mermaid flesh turn into zombie-like monsters, and some become immortal - in either case , the only way to permanently kill them is to decapitate them.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the mystical artifact that creates vampires does so by altering their brains. Decapitation just leaves a pissed-off vampiric head, so destruction of the head is the only way to get rid of them that doesn't involve sunlight or Hamon.
• Played mostly straight in Hellsing. The ghouls will only stop going if they're shot in the head - with the power of the guns that most characters use, this typically destroys the head completely. It's been stated that they will stop if shot in the heart, but this is only seen with the vampires controlling the ghouls. Killing them this way is seen as preferable; the victims who become like this had no choice in the matter and are brainless, flesh-eating machines.

Comic Books

• Marvel Zombies can only be killed by destroying their brains. Decapitation just leaves an irritated head and a lifeless body (as shown by Zombie Wasp and Headpool). An exception is Earth-Z's Electro, who is a mobile headless body.
• In the original The Walking Dead Graphic Novel series, only destroying their brains will kill the walkers.

Film

• George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead film series is the Trope Namer. is a newsman who can't believe he actually has to say this in a news report. At least in the first film, the only other option, according to a medical examiner being interviewed in-universe, is to dispose of "all persons who die during this crisis from whatever cause" in funeral pyres within ten minutes of their deaths.
  • Ironically, the zombies in his films are only immobilized by decapitation. It's debatable whether the heads themselves actually die if the brain isn't destroyed, and as demonstrated in Day of the Dead it's possible to partially reanimate a decapitated head.
• Occurs in Shaun of the Dead, mirroring the quote from the Romero movie right down to the I Can't Believe I'm Saying This:

Jeremy Thompson: It's not something you ever really expect to say, is it?

• Subverted in Return of the Living Dead. The characters assume that they can kill the zombies by destroying the brain, just like in Night of the Living Dead. Nope.

"You mean the movie lied?!"

• In Resident Evil, the zombies can only be killed by severing the top of the spinal column or inflicting massive trauma to the brain.
  • In Resident Evil: Degeneration, Leon warns the two specialists accompanying him to the hot zone to shoot the infected in the head. Twice. They never listen, and it gets one of them killed.
• Evil Dead: After Linda becomes a zombie, the only way Ash can put her to rest is to destroy her brain.

Literature

• Zombies from The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z are vulnerable only to headshots because the virus causes radical mutation, making everything but the brain completely vestigial. Removing the head renders the zombie harmless, but the head is still 'alive' and can still bite. In fact, the Record Attacks comics recount a rite of passage involving spending the night locked in a room full of moaning zombie heads.
• Some Warhammer Fantasy Battle novels dealing with The Undead state that only a headshot dissipates the Black Magic animating the corpses.
• Decapitation is actually the only way to kill a vampire in Bram Stoker's original Dracula. Buffy-style staking is kind of a Plot Tumor of the Dracula-derived vampire mythos; driving a stake through the heart is used to immobilize the vampires so it's easier to take the head off.
• Lampshaded in Brains: A Zombie Memoir.^[context?]
• Averted in Counselors and Kings - it's explicitly stated that removing the head does not destroy a zombie, though it does blind and deafen it, since the now-headless undead has no eyes or ears. Magic or completely destroying the corpse through dismemberment or fire is what kills them.
• In The Forest of Hands and Teeth, zombies can only be killed by chopping off their head.
• Averted in A Song of Ice and Fire - the only way to destroy a wight is to chop them into little pieces or burn them. Just dismembering them is not enough, since the severed limbs will still come after you.

Live-Action TV

• Downplayed with the Geeks in The Walking Dead - the group cuts the head off a walker, but the head is still alive. Daryl comes along and shoots the head, commenting that only a headshot through the brain will put them down.

Music

• Creature Feature's "Aim for the Head". IZA also has a song with the same title and premise.
• "Kill the Zombies (By Shooting Them in the Head)" by Songs to Wear Pants To.
• "Go Zombie" by Zombie Girl repeatedly suggests you do this.
• "If You Shoot The Head You Kill The Ghoul" by Jeffrey Lewis.

Video Games

• Fallout series:
  • Touted by some humans in Fallout 3 on how to kill ghouls (with "zombie" being used as a slur for ghouls), even though they die from normal damage just like any other creature would. Funnily enough, ghouls are still sentient, and one particular ghoul wants you to kill certain anti-ghoul humans, paying you more for killing them with a head shot. However, only one of them is anti-ghoul - the others have a key for a bunker that has the T-51b, and you can keep the keys and take the T-51b for yourself.
  • Fallout New Vegas has an interesting variation of this trope. While practically anything can die if their head is destroyed, the Ghost People of the Dead Money DLC are a special case. While they die (by game engine standards) if any limb is blown off, they still breathe and are alive to some extent, according to the unique mutation they have - unless their head is explicitly destroyed, which prevents them from breathing and thus keeping their bodies in motion.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Stalfos of The Wind Waker will crumble if struck enough times, leaving their head to hop around until their body either regenerates or the player hits it enough times - smashing their head with the Skull Hammer will defeat them instantly.
  • Stalfos Knights in Cadence of Hyrule function similarly, though destroying the body's remains after collapsing them also works.
• In NetHack variant EvilHack, this is one of the many ways to prevent zombie corpses from reviving.
• In the Resident Evil series, The Virus only reanimates the mid-brain, which controls motor functions and hunger - destroying it or shooting them in the head is the fastest method to drop them by far. Weapons that allow you to specifically explode heads are extremely valuable as a result.
  • However, the first game's play style doesn't allow basic handguns to be aimed at the head. In the Gamecube "REmake" of the first game, if the head isn't removed (or the corpse burnt using limited supplies of fuel or incenidary ammo), "dead" zombies mutate into Crimson Heads - which in turn mutate into Lickers.
    • Also in the first game Chief Irons calls this trope out nearly word-for-word in regards to the mayor's daughter, an apparent Zombie Infectee. She was killed by Irons himself; he just blamed the zombies.
• The zombies in Cold Fear. The Exocell parasite nests in the cranium, feeding on the brain.
• Subverted in the Dead Space games: One of the gameplay features is called "strategic dismemberment", where removing or destroying certain parts has different consequences, depending on the Necromorph. A Necromorph that doesn't have a weak point in its head will just get mad if you headshot it.
• Minor zombies in the House of the Dead series can be taken out like this. Bosses have their own weak points, some of which are in the head).
• Invoked in Eternal Darkness with Ulyoth Zombies - one has to decapitate them or they will go Action Bomb. However, zombies of all four Ancients will still fight without their heads; they will be left momentarily stunned if this occurs, comically patting their neck stump as if to say "Oi, who turned off the lights?"
• Used in the final boss battle in the Marine storyline for the 2010 Aliens vs. Predator videogame.
• Triple Subverted in Plants vs. Zombies. When decapitated, zombies need one more shot to kill them... or if you just wait a few seconds, the body falls down by itself.
• In Time Splitters 2, the quickest way to kill a zombie is to shoot off its head.

Web Comics

• Both lampshaded and averted in The Adventures of Wiglaf and Mordred. One character (Gawain) is a Revenant, an intelligent zombie. The first thing that happens to him is a headshot. Arthur, who witnessed the event then calls foul claiming Gawain can not possibly be a zombie - only to be corrected:

Arthur: "You're not a zombie. Everyone knows you take them out with a shot to the head. And you're still standing." Gawain: "Have you ever killed a zombie?" Arthur: "No." Gawain: "Met one?" Arthur: "No." Gawain: "Then, how exactly do you know that actually works?"

• In DMFA, Lorenda asks Abel and Jyrras what they know about the undead.
• Cyanide & Happiness had a rather tasteless Easter joke about this...^[context?]
• In The Zombie Hunters, this is accepted zombie-killing procedure. Justified, since the Zombie Apocalypse has been going on for several years now.
• Averted in the "Special Halloween Episode" for Blade of Toshubi.
• The zombie wranglers of Zombie Ranch declare the front part of the brain "don't matter", but that destroying the rest is a sure way to put a zombie down or prevent an infected person from turning. If you stay away from the brain, you can kill an infected person and they'll still rise again later, which leads to this fateful decision.

Web Original

• Discussed in Tasakeru: During a fight with a Made of Iron Revenant, Commander Nadeshiko wonders how invincible he'll be with a split skull. She doesn't get a chance to find out.

Western Animation

• Mophir's tips for dealing with Demonic Possession by an Artifact of Doom in Justice League. He's rather fond of it, too.

The Flash: How do we fight it, or them? Mophir: Two ways. Pure light from Mophir's gem drives evil spirits back into Dark Heart. The Flash: Great. What's the second way? Mophir: Separate host head from body.

Real Life

• With one exception - Mike the Headless Chicken - either of these methods will kill any animal you could possibly encounter in real life. Of note is that the effect may be delayed in some insects and crustaceans; cockroaches in particular are subject to popular claims of being able to live without their heads, potentially subverting this trope.
  • While their capacity for such is exaggerated, and the trait is by no means exclusive to them, a cockroach's severed head can still survive and wave its antennae for several hours. The body still demonstrates behaviors such as shock avoidance and escape behavior, but will eventually starve to death regardless along with the head.