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Named for [[One-Scene Wonder]] Koh of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''.
Occasionally an application of [[Cannibalism Superpower]] in which case its [[You Are Who You Eat]], although skinning the target is just as common. See [[Kill and Replace]], which is what this trope often leads to.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Chriopterans in ''[[Blood Plus]]'' can take on the form of anybody whose blood they have drunk. Used for extra squick points when Diva {{spoiler|walked around as Riku, the protagonists little brother who she had previously raped and killed}}
* In ''[[Inuyasha]]'', one of Naraku's henchmen was a faceless man who wore the faces of people he'd killed.
* Orochimaru from ''[[Naruto]]'' does this early on during the chunin exams to a team of Grass Village genin. He and his underlings literally take the faces from the victims either while or after killing them and wear them as disguises. However, after that instance the technique is never used again. This could be explained by the fact that there are other (less drastic) ways to copy someone's appearance. Like E-Ranked technique every Academy Student is supposed to know.
** Zetsu can mimic the chakra of people he transforms into, but he needs to take some chakra first
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* Hanzo in ''[[Ultimate Muscle]]'' slices the faces off his defeated opponents.
* In ''[[Nurarihyon no Mago]]'', Rikuo fights a guy who cuts off girls' faces.
* Etzali (Unabara Mitsuki) of ''Toaru Majutsu no Index''.
== Comic Books ==
* The Chameleon from ''[[Spider-Man]]'' comics. Usually he uses a special gas to make a mask out of his target's skin, but some continuities have him actually eat the target.
* The Chitauri in Marvel's ''[[The Ultimates]]'' needed to consume a human to take their shape.
* The [[Marvel Universe]] also has the Dire Wraiths.
* An obscure ''[[Iron Man]]'' villain was a Japanese demon called the Face Thief, who was exactly that.
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* The Zandozan assassin in ''[[The Last Starfighter]]''
* The Djinn from the first, third, and fourth ''[[Wishmaster]]'' movies. In the second he used the same human form he had in the first, a corpse from the morgue. In the third and fourth it gets worse as he skins living people, a hapless college professor and a lawyer played by [[Hey, It's That Guy!|Michael Trucco]], respectively.
* The gingerbread... thing in ''[[The Brothers Grimm (film)|The Brothers Grimm]]'' only got a face after she stole that of a girl, leaving her with a [[The Blank|blank face]].
* Pavi Largo in ''[[Repo! The Genetic Opera]]'', a vain playboy whose own face was scarred horribly by some unseen accident, and who now wears the skinned-off flesh of women's faces bolted over his mutilated flesh like masks. (It's implied that he takes them from women he rapes- and that he possibly even stole them as trophies anyway even before he was disfigured. After all, we see a picture of him with a normal face cutting away a dead woman's skin in an alley...)
* In ''[[Silence of the Lambs]],'' Hannibal Lecter {{spoiler|breaks out of a [[Cardboard Prison]], kills a guard, cuts of his face and wears it like a mask, so that he can [[Playing Possum|play possum]] and pose as the guard in order to escape while being taken to the hospital.}}
* A literal double example, done with surgery and much [[Squick]], in ''[[Face Off]]''.
* [[The Texas Chainsaw Massacre|Leatherface]]
* Lazlo Soot does this in ''[[Smokin Aces]]'' and in ''Smokin' Aces 2''
* The T1000 in ''[[Terminator]] 2''
{{quote|'''Terminator:''' The T-1000's highest probability for success now would be to copy Sarah Connor and to wait for you to make contact with her.
'''John:''' Great. And what happens to her?
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* In the seventh ''[[Harry Potter]]'' book, Nagini the [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent|snake]] ([[Big Bad|Voldemort's]] familiar) impersonates an old woman by hiding inside her corpse.
* The changeling demon from the [[Shannara|High Druid of Shannara]] trilogy takes forms this way, by literally wearing the skin of the person it is impersonating.
* The Kandra in the [[Mistborn]] series. To take a person's form they have to consume their bones and use those as a skeletal structure and an imprint for their flesh to imitate.
* Legion, [[The Mole]] in ''[[The Banned and the Banished]]'', turns into any animal he wears the skin of. It isn't that disgusting until he kills and skins a friendly [[Shape Shifter]] . . .
* The creatures in ''[[The Apocalypse Door]]'' by James D. Macdonald remove and wear the face of the person they're imitating. They also apparently take part of the brain, giving them access to the person's memories.
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* The Skinwalker from the pilot of the ''[[Dresden Files]]'' TV show.
* In an episode of ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'' Vince starts to tell a story about his childhood about an ape who needed to steal a man's face to be king, or something... it ends on a sort-of cliffhanger as Vince (in the story) falls asleep, leaving him susceptible to the ape's intent, but obviously the adult Vince telling the story has a face, so to an extent it's obvious how it ends.
* Accidental usage. There was a character in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' who had the ability to mimic people with just a small physical sample for their DNA. Then Sylar met him, stole his ability and became a Face Stealer in his own right.
* The Slitheen in ''[[Doctor Who]]'' kill humans and fashion their skins into alien-tech disguise suits.
** The Weeping Angels might be an auditory example. They can steal people's vocal cords and impersonate the victim over a telephone or walkie-talkie.
* The Shapeshifters on ''[[Fringe]]'' are a [[Squick]]-y example of this, as the transformation looks exceedingly painful, requires that the victim be dead, and involves a three-pronged metal thing jammed into the roof of their mouth. The second group of shapeshifters from the fourth season require an even more nightmarish and biological [[Body Horror]] to take their victims' form.
* In the fourth season of ''[[True Blood]]'', we learn that [[Shapeshifting|shapeshifters]] can take the form of humans only if they have killed a member of their immediate family.
** One episode of ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' invokes this with an ancient woman who traps young girls and steals their faces in order to retain her youth. She stores their faces in a book, and uses the featureless girls as masked servants.
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== Music Videos ==
* A literal Face Stealer (similar to the ''Avatar: The Last Airbender'' example below) appears in "Maskara" by Filipino band [[The Eraserheads]].
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* The Ganabe in ''Chill''.
* In ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'' there is a species of all-female troll-like monsters who pretend to be human women by killing them and wearing their skin (the illusion holds as long as the skin is more or less fresh.)
* The Lunars from ''[[Exalted]]'' all have a spirit animal they can shapeshift into at will, but can also assume the form of any creature whose heart blood they consume following a ritualistic hunt. And yes, this applies to humans, as well.
== Video Games ==
* Alex Mercer from ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'' eats people and uses this so often he starts [[Body Surf|body surfing]].
* In ''[[Thief]] III'' {{spoiler|this is how Gamall, the main antagonist infiltrates the Keepers.}} This involves skinning people, so it's a very literal example.
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask]]'', the three transformation masks are actually made from the [[Our Souls Are Different|souls of dead characters]] - or possibly a manifestation of their [[Ghostly Goals]], the game isn't exactly clear about the mechanics. Regardless, the character has to die in order for you to get their mask.
** Note that you get the mask by playing the [[Magic Music|Song of Healing]], implying that the mask-transformation process is in some way beneficial to the soul of the departed.
* In the N64/PSX ''[[Mission: Impossible]]'' game, the Face Maker not only duplicates people's faces, but their clothing as well.
* Doopliss in ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]''.
* The Spy in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', upon getting a [[Back Stab]] with the "Your Eternal Reward" knife, instantly disguises as the person he stabbed.
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