History Main / HeadCrushing

** At the end of ''ComicBook/{{Ultimatum}}'', the Thing kills Sue and Johnny's mom, who has started dressing up as Dr. Doom (it MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext), this way, using only one hand.

Can be considered a SisterTrope to SquashedFlat, since that's when this happens to the whole body. This is when it's just the head. Often the result of HeadInAVise, and can be a follow-up to FacepalmOfDoom or being BludgeonedToDeath. Compare RemovingTheHeadOrDestroyingTheBrain (for when those are the two ways to kill a zombie), ChunkySalsaRule (for when someone's head being ground up can be a surefire way of killing them off for real) and YourHeadAsplode (for heads blowing up). When a foot is involved in the head-crushing, it may be a FinishingStomp.

* ''Manga/BeautyAndTheBeastOfParadiseLost'': While Laetitia and Belle are walking into the woods, a woman comes running towards them and asks for help, with the fake beast on her heels. He captures her but, when he sees Laetitia, he realizes she is more beautiful than his prey and crushes the woman's head with a hand.
* In the last episode of ''Anime/BloodC'', Tokizane gets his head brutally stomped by the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Elder Bairns]] who then proceeds to devour his entire body.

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': Ultimately what happens to Pride when Edward invades his body and decimates his Philosopher's Stone. Ed puts his hand right over Selim's face as the stone's souls are dispersed, with the final scene showing Selim's head being crushed as his body withers to dust. Amazingly, Pride ''survives'' this, although he's left as a powerless fetus-like baby.
* ''Manga/{{Gamaran}} Shura'': BigBad Tadaie Hiramatsu, the younger brother of the current Tokugawa Shogun and a genius in martial arts, is currently so powerful his introduction has him smashing open the head of an assassin just by slamming him into the ground at full speed. This serves to show just how powerful he is.

* In ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'''s ''ComicBook/{{Zombo}}'' story arc from 2011, "The Day Zombo Died," Obmoz bare-handedly crushes and squashes the skull of the President of Earth, who is a caricature of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump.
* ''ComicBook/{{Forever Evil|2013}}'': Mazahs crushes Deathstorm's skull between his hands while the latter is bound by Superwoman's Lasso of Submission.

* [[Characters/MarvelComicsTheKingpin The Kingpin]] from Creator/MarvelComics is known to be more than capable of doing this with his hands alone. In at least one instance, in ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'', he put a ComicBook/SpiderMan mask on Mr Big's head, then proceeded to crush his head while fantasizing about doing it to the real Spider-Man himself.
* ''ComicBook/{{Saga}}:'' Though The Will is very much a villain, there are lines he ''will not cross'', as he demonstrates during his visit to the planet of Sextillion, where he crushes the head of a little girl's pimp to a pulp with his bare hands after finding out just how young she is.

** And yet again in ''ComicBook/TheBeastWithin''. Megatron kills a downed Springer by stomping his head into a metallic pulp.

--->'''Rossum:''' Congratulations, Megatron, it's a super-warrior.\\
''(head crush)''\\

* At the end of ''ComicBook/{{Ultimatum}}'', the Thing kills Dr. Doom this way (using only one hand). Except it's not Victor Von Doom, it's Sue and Johnny's mom who had started dressing up as Doom. ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext.

* In ''Fanfic/AllForLuz'' this is [[spoiler:Luz's]] main method of killing her enemies during her RoaringRampageOfRevenge with her SuperStrength. It's quick but brutal death by her literal hands.

** The story starts during ''Series/GameOfThrones''' season 4 episode 8 "[[Recap/GameOfThronesS4E8TheMountainAndTheViper The Mountain and the Viper]]", when Literature/{{Wulfrik}} the Wanderer (going by the name of the Wolf) replaces Oberyn as Gregor Clegane's opponent. He doesn't quite crush Clegane's skull, [[SkeletonsInTheCoatCloset as he needs it as a trophy]]; instead, he rams his thumbs through the bone, bursting Clegane's eyes from behind.

* ''Manga/{{Appleseed}}'': The ActionPrologue of the film briefly shows a combat cyborg crushing one of Deunan's squadmates' heads in its hands.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Beowulf|2007}}'': Grendel crushes the head of a ScreamingWoman with both hands during the first attack on Heorot. Despite the carnage that follows, this example counts as BlackComedy because he just wanted her to shut up (he's extremely sensitive to sounds because of a massively exposed eardrum sticking out from his left ear).

* ''Film/{{Beautiful People|2014}}'': After raping Elena, Brett kills her by hitting her over the head with a rock until it's flattened.

* ImpliedTrope in ''Film/BladeRunner'' when [[spoiler: Roy Batty kills Tyrell. Tyrell's head is in Batty's hands as he is killed.]]

* Just barely averted in ''Film/{{Casino}}''. After [[TheDon Remo's]] restaurant is attacked and both mob-connected people and civilians are killed, Nicky captures one of the guys involved and tries to torture the guy into revealing who was behind the attack. For two days the guy refuses to talk... until Nicky sticks his head in a vice and tightens it enough to make one of his eyes pop out. That makes the guy finally break and Nicky has one of his mooks [[SlashedThroat cut the guy's throat]] as a MercyKill.

* Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse: In ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'', Steppenwolf is beheaded by Wonder Woman. His still-living head lands right in front of Darkseid who crushes it under his foot.

** In ''Film/FinalDestination3'', Lewis is killed by having his head crushed between two falling weights.

* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th''

* ''Film/{{Guardians of the Galaxy|2014}}'': In his first scene, [[BigBad Ronan]] executes a Nova Corps prisoner by smashing his head with the gigantic hammer that serves as his badge of office.

* The kung fu film ''Film/HeroesTwo'' ends with the heroes, Hung Hsi-Kwan and Fang Shi-yu fighting the main villain's EliteMook legion in a duel. Hung managed to kill one of them by forcing his fingers into the mook's temple, before the [[FlashOfPain entire screen flashes red for a second]] with the sound of a cracking skull in the background, and then cutting back to the mook spewing blood from his forehead.
* ''Film/HouseOfTheDead'': At the end of the movie, [[spoiler: Ruby kills [[BigBad Castillo]] for good by crushing his severed head under her boot]].

* ''Film/JackReacher'' has deduced the culprits behind a sniper serial killing, and comes to their lair to confront them. Reacher conducts a hand-to-hand duel with TheDragon Charlie, prefaced with a BadassBoast that he'll stomp on Charlie's head. Which he does. *crunch*
* In the climax of ''Film/{{Mandy|2018}}'', the hero crushes the villain's skull with his bare hands.
* ''Film/{{Mortal Kombat|2021}}'': Jax, mentioned below in "Video Games", finally unlocks the full power of his Arcana (in his case, {{Magitek}} mechanical arms), and kills [[TheBrute Reiko]] by clapping on either side of his head hard enough to crush it between his hands.

* ''Film/PoultrygeistNightOfTheChickenDead'': [[spoiler: ACB mascot/chicken zombie/future!Arbie kills a priest by stomping on his head.]]

* ''Film/ASerbianFilm'': In the film's infamous "Happy Serbian Family" scene, Marija, finally snapping after being raped by her brother-in-law Marko, retaliates firstly by [[ManBitesMan lunging and biting out Marko's throat]], and later grabs a nearby sculpture and uses it to smash Marko's forehead, splitting his cranium. Later on, as Milos realizes he's set up by his brother into raping his whole family, he then grabs the same sculpture and repeatedly smashes it on Marko's bloodied face (even though the brain matter is already everywhere since the skull has caved in completely) in a DesecratingTheDead moment.

* ''Film/TheStoryOfRicky'' has multiple examples, thanks to the film being a {{gorn}}fest with the characters having SuperStrength and not afraid to actually use it for killing. Ricky notably defeats Oscar by smashing his skull in (intersect with an X-ray shot of his skull breaking) and later on Tarzan TheBrute [[https://i0.wp.com/projectedfigures.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/giphy-7.gif?fit=499%2C262&ssl=1 claps a random prisoner's head and mashes it like a melon]].

* ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'': Jetfire kills Scorponok by crushing his skull with a single punch.
* ''Film/TransformersRiseOfTheBeasts'': Battletrap gets his head caved in by Optimus Primal with [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Battletrap's own mace]].

** In episode 3, after Popclaw hears her boyfriend A-Train say that he's single and available, she injects herself with some Compound-V and starts training in a rage. When her landlord comes to collect the rent, she invites him to have sex, and while sitting on his face, she crushes his skull, killing him.
** In episode 8, Homelander takes over the raid of an [=ISIS=] drug plant from a Special Forces unit, and uses his EyeBeams to [[OffWithHisHead behead]], [[AnArmAndALeg dismember]], and [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe slice in half]] [[MookHorrorShow everyone inside]], and the last remaining gunman, Homelander burns his legs off, and smiles while crushing the gunman's head under his boot.
* ''Series/BreakingBad'': In "[[Recap/BreakingBadS2E6Peekaboo Peekaboo]]", Spooge's girlfriend -- after being repeatedly called a "skank" by Spooge -- kills him by tipping over the ATM he was trying to break into onto his head.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In the new series, Daleks have demonstrated the ability to implode skulls with their often-mocked plungers. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek Dalek]]", it's done simply as a means of killing someone. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Doomsday]]", it's a means of extracting knowledge (fatally).

* Music/{{Megadeth}}: "Head Crusher" is the first single from their album ''Endgame'', and is about a medieval torture device of the same name. The song's lyrics are about a prisoner being taken to a head crusher to torture him as a means to interrogate him for information as well as the effects a head crusher would have on a body once inflicted.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Doom|2016}}'' and ''VideoGame/DoomEternal'' several [[CruelAndUnusualDeath Glory Kills]] involve smashing an unlucky demon's head into paste, either from above [[GoombaStomp with his boot]] or the demon's head being between the Doom Slayer's fist and a hard surface.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'': In chapter 11 of the Azure Moon route, [[spoiler: Dimitri finds out the identity of the Flame Emperor, a revelation that [[GoMadFromTheRevelation he doesn't take well at all.]] After that, he goes on a murderous spree and slaughters the Flame Emperor's {{Mooks}}. One of them finds his end as Dimitri crushes his head with one hand.]]
* ''VideoGame/FistOfTheNorthStarLostParadise'': Three words -- Hokuto Kouretsu Ha (aka, Hokuto Steel Shredding Clench). If Kenshiro isn't using this to mortally wound Uighur during their bout, then he'll certainly crush any unlucky villain's head with this.

* This is how we are (re)introduced to Trevor Phillips in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''. When a [[spoiler:meth-addled Johnny Klebitz]] (verbally) confronts Trevor over screwing over with his girl, the latter decides to throttle him to the ground and kills him by ''repeatedly'' stomping on the poor guy's head until its reduced to a graphic splatter.
* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'': Throughout the franchise, one of the most common and iconic finishing moves on a down enemy is to roadie-run up and curb stomp their head into mush.
* ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'': One of Kratos's new finishing moves that he can use against [[TheUndead Draugr and Hel-Walkers]] is grabbing their feet and throwing their heads to the ground before stamping them to a pulp, producing a lovely spray of [[AlienBlood orange or blue blood]].

** The original [=PS1=] Trilogy would let the player character sacrifice a small bit of health for an instant kill by letting a crippled ankle biter get a hold of them. Starting with Resident Evil 2, the player can button mash to kill the zombie quicker and save more health. The tradition continued as seen below:
** In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0'' and the ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRemake'', if downed zombies latch onto the PlayerCharacter, the character will, upon getting loose from their grip, crush the zombie's head under their foot.

** [[ComicBook/{{Superman}} Doomsday]] starts off his Death Battle against [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk the Hulk]] by grabbing a random civilian in the city he just landed in and crushing his head ''with one hand''.
** Android 18 finishes off Captain Marvel by sending her crashing into the ground and then immediately stomping on her head. The nearby dragon ball gets blood splattered all over it.
** The Shredder, after karate-chopping the Silver Samurai's own katana (which he threw into Keniuchio's head) in order to remove his head, catches it and crushes it with one hand in gory detail whilst [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou glaring right at the viewer]].

** At the end of "Genos vs. War Machine", War Machine finishes Genos off by stomping his head under his foot. Since Genos' head was all that was left of him at that point, Genos was, for all intents and purposes, completely destroyed.
** At the conclusion of "Red Hood and the Winter Soldier", Bucky finishes off Jason by grabbing him by the head while he's disoriented from Bucky's gun exploding and crushes his skull with his cybernetic arm.
** "Thor vs. Vegeta" ends with Thor grabbing Vegeta by the face, then calling Mjölnir back to him. Mjölnir flies into the hand holding Vegeta's head, which is promptly, slowly crushed.
** At the end of "Omni-Man vs. Homelander", after viscerally ripping out his opponent's jaw, Omni-Man kills Homelander by crushing both his skull and his heart into paste between his bare hands. At the ''same time''.

** "Black Adam vs. Apocalypse" ends with Black Adam attempting to say his magic words, only for it to fail due to his Living Lightning drained by Apocalypse, who follows up by stomping on his head multiple times, [[FacialHorror mutilating his face gorily]]. It doesn't finish off Teth-Adam, but that's because En Sabah Nur wants him to [[ForcedToWatch watch Kahndaq being destroyed]] before actually killing him.
* ''WebAnimation/HalfLifeSideStoryGaidenHuntDownFreeMan'': After defeating the Combines boss, Moint Pan finishes him off by stomping on his head and "crushes his head real hard almost under his boot".[[note]]Yes, the typos and bad grammar are intentional. [[StylisticSuck It's that kind of video.]][[/note]]
* ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'': In the episode "Icy You", after having [[LipLosses his lips ripped off]] and being popped like a balloon, what ultimately does Nutty in is when the convenience store's automatic doors close on his head, crushing it into LudicrousGibs.

* ''Webcomic/InOurShadow'': In the climactic battle at the end of Book 2, Lady Brushfire leaps from her wrecked mech, tears open the cockpit of Quartz's mech, and [[https://www.deviantart.com/kitfox-crimson/art/In-Our-Shadow-page-346-749713598 crushes his head in one hand]]. Justified as she's a red kangaroo and he's a rat. The epilogue shows that Brushfire kept Quartz's cracked skull as a trophy.
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'': During a supervillian meeting, Crushestro pulls one off on the Time Czar in a GoryDiscretionShot. The others find it less impressive after making a BondOneLiner about having "too much time on [his] hands".

* WebVideo/DannyGonzalez: In his review of ''Film/HowToBuildABetterBoy'', he has a sketch about Albert going to the principal's office for various disruptions, one of which involved crushing a bully's head between his legs.
* In the ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' version of ''[[Recap/DragonBallZAbridgedM4 Revenge of Cooler]]'', one of BigBad Cooler's henchmen refers to having done this before, asking his fellow henchmen in the QuirkyMiniBossSquad "Hey boys, remember when I said I once popped a man's skull with me bare hands?" As he asks them that, he begins squeezing [[KidHero Gohan's]] head, and judging by Gohan's eyes, it is quite painful. Fortunately [[BigDamnHeroes Piccolo arrives in time to intervene]] and saves Gohan.

* ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'': Negaduck has captured most of the Justice Ducks, and has them pinned in place, awaiting slow execution by various means. Morgana [=McCawber=] has her head in a large vise, which is slowly squeezing closed. Fortunately, this deathtrap gets disabled before it could do irreversible damage; only her peculiar hairstyle is affected.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Invincible|2021}}'':
** Red Rush is killed by Omni-Man, who squeezes the former's head until it breaks.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfVoxMachina'':
** Kerrion Stonefell, a disgusting toad carrying a massive hammer, does this to [[MauveShirt an unnamed woman who fights]] [[LaResistance in the revolution]] alongside Vox Machina. His hammer crushes the top half of her skull and most of her brain, exposing what remains before she collapses.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'': Threatened. Spidey tries to stop an advancing Rhino by sending a cascade of bowling balls his way, but Rhino simply crushes them underfoot. He then stops with his foot hovering over Spidey's skull and says "Remember what I did to them bowling balls?"

Since this is a DeathTrope, expect '''unmarked spoilers''' to be here. And it's also one of the more gruesome ones, so please, Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamples.

** If she's present for his BossBattle, Dame Aylin delivers the killing blow by viciously stomping on his head. ''[[GoodIsNotNice Repeatedly]]''. While cursing the living daylights out of his mangled corpse.

-->''"Elia Martell. I killed her children. ''Then'' I raped her. ''Then'' I smashed her head, in like this!"''

* ''Series/{{The Boys|2019}}'':

* In Season 1 of Series/Daredevil2015, Kingpin is extremely upset when a Russian mobster accidentally interrupts his date, as punishment he beats the man and crushes his head in the door of a limo repeatedly until the man is practically decapitated.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In the new series, Daleks have demonstrated the ability to implode skulls with their often-mocked plungers. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek Dalek]]" it's done simply as a means of killing someone. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday Doomsday]]", it's a means of extracting knowledge, fatally.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Gregor Clegane kills Oberyn Martell in their duel by crushing the man's head like a grape in his bare hands, starting by [[EyeScream shoving his thumbs into his eyes]].
-->"Elia Martell. I killed her children. ''Then'' I raped her. ''Then'' I smashed her head, in like this!"

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'': In "Mr. Monk Goes To The Circus", Monk tries to help Sharona overcome her fear of elephants, by taking her to see the circus elephant Dede. To show her Dede is harmless, her trainer Heinz puts his head under the elephant's foot. [[GoneHorriblyWrong It backfires horribly]], because the murderer had placed a walkie-talkie behind Dede's ear. [[spoiler:She]] commands the elephant to put her foot down, crushing Heinz's skull in front of Monk and Sharona and exacerbating the poor woman's fear exponentially.
* ''Series/TwinPeaksTheReturn'': In Part 8, one of the woodsmen kills a receptionist and a disk jockey at a radio station with a one-handed head-crushing before reciting a [[MadnessMantra cryptic mantra]] over the air.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': After the starship crash at the end of the tutorial, you find the mind flayer who kidnapped you all and implanted you with its parasites, now clinging to life in the wreckage. If you choose to finish it off, you splatter its head beneath your foot.

* ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'': [[VideoGame/StreetFighter Zangief]]'s specialty is crushing his opponents' heads with his thighs, a job he considers so important that he stays evil just so there is someone to do it.

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic-nrs5beow final battle]] of ''Film/RomeoMustDie'' have Han (Jet Li) fighting Kai (Russell Wong), ending with Han landing a fatal, skull-breaking kick into Kai's skull which then leads to a domino-like shattering effect on each and every bone in Wong's spine, gloriously depicted as an X-ray sequence. It's a homage to a similar scene from ''Film/TheStreetfighter''.

* ''Film/{{Guardians of the Galaxy|2014}}'': In his first scene, [[BigBad Ronan]] executes a Nova Corps prisoner by smashing his head with a hammer.

* ''Music/{{Megadeth}}'': "Head Crusher" is the first single from their album ''Endgame'', and is about a medieval torture device of the same name. The song's lyrics are about a prisoner being taken to a head crusher to torture him as a means to interrogate him for information as well as the effects a head crusher would have on a body once inflicted.

** Majiramon meets his end when Beelzebumon grabs his head and crushes it in order to absorb his data.

* At the end of ''ComicBook/{{Ultimatum}}'', the Thing kills Dr. Doom this way (using only one hand).

* In ''VideoGame/Madworld'', this is one of Jack’s main moves.

* ''Series/MadTV'': In the "Raging Rudolph" animation, Yukon Cornelius kills an elf by putting his head in a vice and squeezing it until it cracks.

* ''Videogame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'': In chapter 11 of the Azure Moon route, [[spoiler: Dimitri finds out the identity of the Flame Emperor, a revelation that [[GoMadFromTheRevelation he doesn't take well at all.]] After that, he goes on a murderous spree and slaughters the Flame Emperor's {{Mooks}}. One of them finds his end as Dimitri crushes his head with one hand.]]

* ''Videogame/UntilDawn'': This is a possible death for Josh; the Wendingo ambushes him from underwater, grabs him by the head, and crushes his skull between its palms.

* [[Characters/MarvelComicsTheKingpin The Kingpin]] from Creator/MarvelComics is known to be more than capable of doing this with his hands alone. In at least one instance, he put a ComicBook/SpiderMan mask on someone's head, then proceeded to crush their head while fantasizing about doing it to the real Spider-Man himself.

** ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'': After ripping Kaon's head off for showing weakness in front of their allies, Tarn crushes the offending head against Overlord's chest.

** In ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'', Ser Criston Cole beats the living shit out of Ser Joffrey Lonmouth's head on the ground, crushing his face beyond recognition and with much {{gorn}}.