Spikes of Doom: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Commonly used as an alternative to the [[Bottomless Pit]], a floor covered with spikes spells certain [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|doom]] for the platform-jumping hero - that is, unless you've got an [[Invincibility Power-Up]] or are allowed [[Mercy Invincibility]]. They can be used in other places besides floors - as videogame design throughout the ages has shown, you can put spikes ''anywhere'' to spell the simple message "[[Collision Damage|touch me]] and [[One-Hit Kill|die]]!"

Spikes have a strange tendency to repeatedly retract into the ground and then come back out again, forming a sort of [[Temporary Platform]].

* ''[[Cube (Film)|Cube]]'' also had a room where sound-activated spikes move out of the walls in every which direction.

* In ''[[Event Horizon (Film)|Event Horizon]]'', the titular ship's gravity drive apparently requires copious amounts of spikes to function properly. The doors have spikes on the edges which close into a tiny square, the hallway into the engine room is best described as a walkway through a giant mulcher... the people who made this ship must have been baked out of their skulls. And none of this has any purpose, even for the sake of gory deaths. In fact, when someone DOES die in there, they land on a walkway over the coolant pool, tearing apart their entire body.

* Deployed on the king's order in ''[[Army of Darkness]]'', when Ash fights some decomposing deadites in a pit. Similar to many video game versions in that, when Ash throws one of his foes against the incoming wall of spikes, it just yanks itself free because its undead body can only be stopped by dismemberment, not impalement.

* In ''[[Hidalgo]]'', the titular horse falls into a spiked pit at one point in the story.

* Rambo constructs traps [[Impaled With Extreme Prejudice|intended to impale enemy soldiers]] in ''[[First Blood (Film)|First Blood]]''.

* ''[[The Running Man (Film)|The Running Man]]'' had a wall of spikes in a wrestling cage-the villains used a stand-in to make it appear Arnold Schartzenegger's character died on the spikes.

* The Emperor causes a snowy courtyard to sprout hundreds of upward-pointing icicles in ''[[The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (Film)|The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor]]''.

** Instant Spikes Of Doom: Just Add Water?

* ''[[The Prisoner]]'' episode "The Girl Who Was Death" has Number 6 (as Mister X) in a gauntlet that includes a trap door over a rising floor of spikes. That are electrified.

* [[Caltrops]] are four spikes arranged so that however you drop one, it will land with one spike pointing up (kinda like the jacks in a game of Pick Up Jacks). The idea is to drop them in the road or in a field somewhere to prevent vehicles or cavalry from operating freely without fear of injury or damage. They were used in the Korean War by the Air Force to cut off roads used by Communist supply lines, so they could come back and bomb the disabled supply vehicles. Pictures of the beaches at Normany show giant caltrops designed to hinder landing craft and tanks. Maybe not immediately threatening, but remember that while you're trying to get around these things or clean them up, you've probably got bad guys opening up with [[More Dakka|machine guns]], [[No Kill Like Overkill|artillery]], and maybe even [[Death From Above|air strikes]] if you're particularly [[Butt Monkey|unblessed in life]].

* This is being tossed around as an idea to ward future Earthlings away from highly radioactive places. Played with, since the spikes would be too massive to be really dangerous (Just foreboding) but the radiation is certainly lethal enough. The idea behind it is that most types of radiation that we generate these days has a half-life a lot longer than [[Eternal English|any language we've ever spoken]]. A "Warning, Radiation" sign would go unheeded if no one can speak English or even read. A giant wall of spikes, however, would certainly act as a [[Shmuck Bait|deterrent]].

* Cypress and mangrove trees have spiky "knee roots" that could potentially impale an unwary explorer.

* Leap Castle in County Offaly, Ireland had one of these in its [[Sealed Room in The Middle of Nowhere|oubliette chamber]]. Prisoners were thrown in, and the "lucky" ones landed on the spike. The not-so-lucky ones simply wasted away from dehydration, starvation, infection, and exposure. ''Three'' large cartloads of human bones were removed from the then-abandoned castle in the 1930's. (Along with a gold watch dated to the 1840's, even though the castle was abandoned at that time.)

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[[Category:This Index Is in The Way]]

[[Category:Spikes Of Doom]]