We all survived 2007, so at this point, everyone knows how to kill a zombie. Depending on your age and the intensity with which your dad devoted himself to genre fiction, you might have had it drilled into you since you were literally a baby: Go for the head. Ideally with a shotgun. If you have to get close, a sword is acceptable. Daryl Dixon made the crossbow iconic, and there’s a reason he uses it.

And most of the time, that’s pretty much it. Just about any time you see a zombie in a movie, TV show or video game, it’s going to get its head shot or sliced off in short order. It’s effective, but it gets boring. Sometimes, horror movie heroes have to get creative. That’s when they pick up…

50) A Lawn Mower (Dead Alive)

The thing about zombies is that they tend to come in packs, and the traditional methods for dispatching them are pretty slow. That’s why, when the hero of Peter Jackson’s 1992 zombie classic ends up with a house full of zombies, he picks up a lawn mower and enters blades first, neatly cutting through the pack.

49) A Flare Gun (Survival of the Dead)

In the 2009 installment of George Romero’s lauded zombie series, National Guard Sergeant “Nicotine” Crockett probably could have pushed a zombie he finds wandering around a boat overboard, but he’s got a nickname to uphold. Instead, he shoots the zombie in the chest with a flare gun, which sets its head on fire from the inside, allowing Crockett to light a cigarette before sending the zombie to its watery grave.

48) A Shipping Container (Army of the Dead)

In one of the sadder moments of 2021’s Army of the Dead, a mother and daughter desperately flee Las Vegas as the government cordones off the city with a circle of shipping containers, and they almost make it before one is dropped right on top of them and a whole bunch of zombies. It’s too bad they didn’t get out, but it’s a real Looney Tunes-ass way to take out a lot of zombies at once.

47) Darts, Bullets, and Two Walls (Army of the Dead)

In addition to zombies, Army of the Dead is also about a heist, and to get to the loot, the gang has to get past several booby traps. They send out a zombie as a guinea pig and learn what awaited them if they hadn’t: a round of blow darts, a round of gunfire and a squishy death between two fast-moving walls.

46) A Garrote (Army of the Dead)

Maybe the ickiest kill in the movie comes when one of the gang leaders is tasked with taking a sample of the Zombie Queen’s blood and decides to take her head instead, not with a blade or even an implausible rip but with a length of thin cord. The job is so slow and brutal that even Zack Snyder’s camera has to look away.

45) A Jukebox (Shaun of the Dead)

Is it even possible to hear “Don’t Stop Me Now” without thinking of Shaun and his pals beating the zombie barkeep of the Winchester pub with pool cues? After darts and a fire extinguisher likewise prove to be ineffective weapons, Shaun manages to push him face-first into the jukebox for a kill that would make Fonzie proud.

44) Records (Shaun of the Dead)

If you had to sacrifice your favorite songs to stop the undead hordes, could you do it? That’s the dilemma Shaun has to confront when his record collection ends up being the best weapon at hand. The discs don’t actually turn out to be sharp enough to kill, but New Order and the Batman soundtrack at least buy them time.

43) A Flying Kick to the Face (World War Z)

When downtown Philadelphia is overcome by the undead, the Lane family hijacks an RV to escape, and upon detecting a zombie trying to climb in through the window, Gerry’s wife, Karin, grabs hold of the overhead roll bar and plants a foot in its face, sending it flying headfirst into the window of a parked car. We like to think all moms have that skill set up their pant legs.

42) The Sweetest Hit and Run (World War Z)

Shortly after his wife’s Xena: Warrior Princess act, another zombie begins bashing its head against the RV’s passenger side window, so Gerry veers into the next lane, sandwiching the zombie between the RV and a bus that’s… still running its route? Damn, give it up for Philadelphia public transportation.

41) A Hole Exploded Through the Side of an Airplane (World War Z)

Enclosed spaces are real problems when it comes to zombies. Like, if you’re on an airplane with one, you can’t easily escape. What you can do, at least if you’re Brad Pitt and you’re in a movie, is barricade the living at one end of the plane and blow a hole into the side of the other, sucking the zombies out into the atmosphere. Our planologists tell us it doesn’t really work like that, but it’s not like you’d have a lot of options.

40) A Toilet Tank Lid (Zombieland)

Zombieland is the Godfather of creative zombie kills, but at the beginning of the movie, Jesse Eisenberg doesn’t know what to do when Amber Heard zombies out on him. As she chases him around his apartment, he tries a blender, a doorframe, a shower curtain and a variety of toiletries before grabbing the toilet tank lid and just beating her about the face with it.

39) A Carnival Ride (Zombieland)

Near the end of the movie, the gang is facing down hordes of zombies at an amusement park when Woody Harrelson gets an idea for mowing down dozens of zombies at once and grabs onto the seat of a ride that spins in a circle, hanging by one arm as he uses the other to unleash a 360-degree hail of bullets on the surrounding horde. Our grip strength could never.

38) A Carnival Game Mallet (Zombieland)

You know those big mallets stationed at games of Whack-a-Mole and that strength-testing game where you bring the hammer down on a plastic stump as hard as you can? You wouldn’t think they’re ideal zombie-killing instruments, as they’re light enough to be handled by children, but you work with what you’ve got, and when that clown came at Eisenberg, so did he.

37) A Piano (Zombieland)

When it comes to purely cartoonish stunts, nothing beats the piano that Sister Cynthia Knickerbocker somehow rigged up at her place of worship to drop over a door onto an unsuspecting zombie when she yanked on a cord. Seriously, nothing — it was the Zombie Kill of the Week, after all.

36) The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Zombieland: Double Tap)

But the Zombie Kill of the Year rightfully went to the enterprising Italian who lured a trio of zombies beneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa with some tasty-looking mannequins before wedging a jack beneath the landmark, toppling it over on top of them. Again, that doesn’t seem like the laws of physics we know, but who cares?

35) An Electric Fence (Land of the Dead)

The survivors of Romero’s 2005 volume knew the best security was a hands-off operation, so they built their new municipality with a river on one side and an electric fence on the other. Zombies are still too stupid to stay away, though, resulting in a delightful fireworks show on a semi-regular basis.

34) A Live Wire Down the Throat (Pet Sematary 2)

Electricity is a consistently satisfying method of eliminating zombies, as baby John Connor learns when he’s pinned down by his now-zombified bully in the thoroughly unsanctioned sequel to Pet Sematary. Spotting his opportunity in a nearby downed power line, he shoves it through his foe’s mouth with a precocious, “Eat this, asshole!”

33) A Defibrillator (Diary of the Dead)

If you have to be trapped with the undead, a hospital is the place to be. There’s all kinds of unforgiving lighting and sharp objects. The heroes of Romero’s 2007 entry, however, choose a gun, and when it jams, they sandwich a zombie’s head between the paddles of a defibrillator, frying her skull until her eyeballs burst. Again, we’re pretty this isn’t what defibrillators do, and if they do, we don’t want them anywhere near us.

32) An Icicle (The Walking Dead)

The Walking Dead is the Zombieland of television, where every week is a Zombie Kill of the Year. An icicle is probably the most creative murder weapon in history, being famously untraceable, but when you don’t have to worry about getting caught, it’s just fun, like when Daryl takes full advantage of his environment to fight zombies in a blizzard.

31) Bound Wrists (The Walking Dead)

After Merle tied her hands with razor wire, Michonne seemed helpless against a horde of undead, but after some quick thinking, she figured out she could put her arms around a zombie’s head and pull it into a pole, slicing its head clean off. That’s why she’s the queen.

30) A Broken Chair (The Walking Dead)

Glenn also ran into trouble after Merle tied him up and set a walker loose on him. After an action-packed tussle, he managed to bash the legs of the chair he was tied to against the wall enough times to break its legs off, which he thrust into the zombie’s skull and out through its eye.

29) A Flaming Lake (The Walking Dead)

A lake of fire has some serious symbolic value, and it’s probably the closest The Walking Dead gang ever came to sending a horde straight to hell. After filling the lake of Alexandria with gasoline and setting it ablaze, the undead went right for it, proving you can lead a zombie to fire and you can absolutely make him sink.

28) A Firehose (The Walking Dead)

You wouldn’t think a firehose, an object intended to save lives, could do all that much damage, but those suckers pack enough pressure to seriously mess you up. That was proven when Eugene took one to a mob of zombies and blasted them apart as if they were soggy scraps of bread in a restaurant kitchen sink.

27) Logs (The Walking Dead)

The Walking Dead doesn’t usually get outright cartoonish with its kills, but a conveniently placed stack of logs proved too tempting for Rick when he was faced with a horde of zombies ascending a hill toward him. One swipe through the cord holding them together, and he rolled a perfect score in the biggest game of Indiana Jones bowling.

26) A Car Trunk (The Walking Dead)

On the other hand, sometimes the best method is the simplest. When Daryl comes across a woman and a baby trapped in a car and a zombie trying to climb through the cargo space toward them, he pulls it out and closes the door on its head. He must have one powerful pulldown, too, because it crushes the zombie’s head into jam.

25) Clotheslining (The Walking Dead)

What’s the best way to take out hundreds of zombies strolling down a highway median? String a wire between two cars and take them all out at once, as Rick and Michonne do in Season Seven. Hey, it’s the apocalypse — it’s not like you have to worry about driving down the wrong side of the highway.

24) A Chain (The Walking Dead)

Now, see, when we swing a chain at someone’s face, they just get really mad. It doesn’t knock their head off even a little. But we’re no Daryl Dixon, so of course, when he does it, the force of his swing decapitates not one, not two, but three zombies in a row. Yes, like Catwoman in Batman Returns. Yes, possibly even cooler.

23) Barehanded Disembowel (Dead Rising 2: Off the Record)

Dead Rising’s Frank West is ostensibly an ordinary guy, so it’s particularly impressive when you find out he has the skills to simply reach into a zombie’s abdominal cavity (or a human’s, for that body) and pull its organs out. We have it on good authority that very few other journalists can do the same. Maybe Connie Chung.

22) Head-Crushing Suplex (Resident Evil 4)

Have you ever suplexed someone? Of course, you have. You were once a seven-year-old with attention issues and too little supervision, right? Well, did it ever decapitate anyone? For some reason, when you suplex a zombie in Resident Evil 4, it turns their head into a fine mist, and we don’t care what that reason is. You even get to emit a satisfying “hyah!”

21) Chainsaw Between the Legs (Lollipop Chainsaw)

One of Juliet Starling’s signature moves in Lollipop Chainsaw involves falling into a perfect front split, swinging her heart-festooned chainsaw between their legs, and slicing them in half from the bottom up. She’s a cheerleader, after all. A zombie apocalypse is no reason to let those skills go to waste.

20) Spore Bombs (The Last of Us)

Zombies in the advanced stage of infection known as Bloaters in The Last of Us are covered in explosive spores that they can rip off their bodies and throw at their opponents, but there’s a disadvantage to being covered in bombs. If you hit one with a bullet, you can get the drop on them.

19) The Blaze of Glory (State of Decay)

There’s an achievement in State of Decay that requires the player to “Go Out in a Blaze of Glory,” which means equipping yourself with a grenade or other explosive, intentionally luring zombies to you, letting them maul you until you’ve really got their attention, and then blowing them all (and yes, yourself) to pieces. 

18) Electric Bone Saw (Re-Animator)

In the 1985 H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, our heroes are medical students experimenting with, you know, being the title when they’re discovered by the dean of the medical school, who is promptly attacked by their creation. They can’t save him in time, but one of them does drive an electric bone saw into the zombie’s back all the way through his chest, which is pretty sweet.

17) The Ol’ Squish and Throw (Re-Animator)

After both the dean and another professor are zombified and the professor’s head and body are separated to act independently — yeah, this movie comes at you fast — the dean takes his colleague down by crushing his head to a pulp in his bare hands and then throwing it down a hallway into a wall. You know, to make sure.

16) Baseball Launcher (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse)

It may not be what it generates headlines for, but scouting is all about survival skills, making its members uniquely equipped to face off against a zombie apocalypse. When they must raid a party full of zombies, our heroes DIY some weapons at a hardware store, one of which is a sort of T-shirt cannon that shoots baseballs hard enough to pop a zombie’s head like a zit.

15) Chainsaw Fan (Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse)

Another of the scouts’ jerry-rigged weapons is some kind of chain-powered fan, its blades unprotected, which has the effect of Peter Jackson’s lawn mower, spinning through zombies until they’re nothing more than stains to be mopped up later.

14) Drum Sticks (Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave)

Drum sticks are so useful — you can use them to press elevator buttons, scratch your ass and even play drums, probably. You can also use them to stab zombies through the eyes, as demonstrated by one quick-thinking drummer in Return of the Living Dead 5 when zombies crash band practice. Extra points for double fisting it like he does.

13) Antennae (Juan of the Dead)

The roof is a dangerous place to be in a zombie apocalypse — sure, you can throw zombies off it, but they can throw you, too. There’s not a lot of great weapons to be found up there, either, but there might be some antennae that, like Juan, you can snap off and drive through the eye sockets of attackers.

12) Shovel Decapitation (Day of the Dead)

We know you have to destroy the head, but there are so many methods of decapitation we’d try before we landed on “shovel.” Who knew those things were even sharp enough to separate a zombie from its head? One of George Romero’s 1985 heroes, apparently.

11) Electric Drill (Day of the Dead)

Meanwhile, back in Dr. Logan’s lab, when one of his experiments goes slowly rogue and begins to start to think about attacking another scientist — spilling its guts everywhere in the process — Logan calmly approaches with an electric drill and slides it into the zombie’s forehead. You get the sense he has to do this a lot. The carpet cleaning bills must be horrendous.

10) Pool Cue (Dawn of the Dead)

Shaun and the gang should have realized pool cues were good for better things than rhythmic beating. In 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, one of the survivors throws off a zombie by grabbing a broken pool cue, slapping it across the face, and then driving it through its chin all the way out the top of its head.

9) Fire Poker (Dawn of the Dead)

Later in the film, another one of our heroes, a nurse, is tending to a victim and experiences a real emotional roller coaster when her charge dies, reanimates and begins chasing her. Fortunately, they’re in some seriously plush digs, and the nurse gets hold of a fire poker that she can shove through the zombie’s eye.

8) Propane Tank (Dawn of the Dead)

Taking out large numbers of the undead is a persistent problem in the zombie canon, but we’ve established that explosives are pretty good bets, so later in the film, one of our heroes tosses a lit propane tank into the zombie crowd and then shoots it for good measure.

7) Gas Tank (Dawn of the Dead)

In the 1978 original, rural townsfolk keep the undead at bay through a combination of military presence and hunting parties. In one particular impressive trick shot, a hunter notices a group of zombies wandering near a car in an open field and shoots at the gas tank, blowing them all up.

6) Helicopter Decapitation (Dawn of the Dead)

When our heroes stop to refuel their helicopter before hunkering down in the famous shopping mall, one of them fails to notice an approaching zombie, thanks to the whirring of the helicopter blades. Fortunately, those very same blades swoop in to the rescue, taking off the top of the zombie’s head before he can do any damage.

5) Helicopter Massacre (28 Weeks Later)

That’s not the only time a helicopter has been used to take down zombies. In 28 Weeks Later, as a pilot is attempting to hightail it out of there, he figures he might as well dive-bomb straight into some zombies on the way, dicing the mob into zombies julienne.

4) Molotov Cocktails (28 Days Later)

Usually, when launched weapons like molotov cocktails are used in zombie movies, they’re thrown inside buildings to take out a whole bunch at once. In 28 Days Later, however, when Cillian Murphy first meets other survivors, they just light up and launch at individual zombies, who immediately catch on fire. A waste of resources, perhaps, but an entertaining one.

3) Syringe Launcher (Planet Terror)

Some may point, not without merit, to the gun leg Rose McGowan uses to mow down zombies in 2007’s Planet Terror, but let’s consider the needle gun Marley Shelton uses to subdue their zombie captors. That can’t possibly have any legitimate medical use, but it can be worn on a thigh holster.

2) Zombie Arm (Dance of the Dead)

If you find yourself in a zombie attack situation where you truly have no weapons, don’t fret. Zombie limbs are easy to pull off and use against them. You can simply beat them to death, or you can take the Dance of the Dead route of shoving their own arm down their throat. You know, for that extra flair.

1) Electricity (Return of the Living Dead Part II)

We’ve already demonstrated how useful electricity is for killing zombies, but it tends to be limited to single kills. Not so in Return of the Living Dead Part II. After our heroes lure the hordes to a power plant, one of them throws a switch that activates a downed power line that electrifies the huge puddle they’re all standing, electrocuting zombies by the hundreds. Now that’s a wave of death.