History Main / YouCantKillWhatsAlreadyDead

* ''Film/SleepyHollow'': Lampshaded by Icabhod Crane during the film's climax, when his young ward, Masbeth, asks if he's succeeded in killing the Headless Horseman.

-->'''Cell''': Do you think you won the match, Goku? [[YouFool You fool!]] Here in Hell, our bodies are immortal!\\
'''Frieza''': You will never be able to beat me because I'm already dead!

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

-->[''the group watches as the Horseman steps out of the burning windmill, [[ImplacableMan unscathed]]]''\\

'''Icabhod:''' That's the problem: [[WhamLine it was already dead to begin with.]]

* ''Anime/DragonBallGT'': While Goku is trapped in Hell during the Super 17 Saga, he finds himself facing off against [[BashBrothers Frieza and Cell]]. While he's more than a match for them even without going Super Saiyan, he learns this trope is in effect when he deflects their attacks back at them, only for them to regenerate.

'''Frieza''': You will never be able to beat me because I'm already dead.

* Subverted in the second season of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' after Owen is reanimated. True, blood loss or damage to vital organs can't kill him anymore, but he doesn't heal either and doesn't feel any pain to prevent him accidentally damaging himself. As demonstrated when he accidentally slices his hand open with a scalpel and has to sew it back together.

** In both ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'' and ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'', this is the reason for vampires to be ImmuneToBullets. It's not that bullets actually cause less damages to their body than they do with humans, it's just that vampires don't actually ''need'' vital organs, so unless you actually start damaging the limbs, this won't do much to them. They are still vulnerable to fire and beheading, though.

* ''Film/TheMummy2017'': ZigzaggedTrope. The mummies in the film are actually far more vulnerable than human mooks, as one might except from a decaying body. However, they still ignore all pain and [[WhoNeedsTheirWholeBody keep coming after losing one or more limbs]].

* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'': Jason Voorhees was at first a regular human slasher villain, but after his resurrection as a zombie he starts to shrug off most damage inflicted on him. The tenth movie {{hand wave}}s this by explicitly giving him a HealingFactor.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

* ''Comicbook/XStatix'': Dead Girl is extremely tough to damage or destroy because her body is a walking corpse.

[[folder:Film - Live-Action]]

-->''(the group watches as the Horseman steps out of the burning windmill, [[ImplacableMan unscathed]])''
-->'''Icabhod:''' "That's the problem: [[WhamLine it was already dead to begin with."]]

** In ''{{Discworld/Pyramids}}'', Teppic's father notes that the mummification process seems to have made him stronger, due to the extra weight provided by the straw.

* [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zagged]] in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': Undead are just as susceptible to {{Hit Point|s}} damage as anyone else, but their lack of bodily functions makes them immune to {{Critical Hit}}s, [[BackStab sneak attacks]], and other effects that rely on the target's anatomy -- only gross physical damage gets the job done.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': Subverted. Flood Combat Forms can be eliminated with a precise shot to the Infection Form "piloting" the body. When this happens, the Combat Form will fall over as if dead, and a gaping hole will be seen where the Infection Form once was. However, from ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' onward, another Infection Form may wander over at any time and take control of the Combat Form again, with the Combat Form having the same amount of health it had before it was "killed." This means that in order to prevent dead Combat Forms from coming back to life in this manner, the player either has to either kill every Infection Form in the room or manually dismember each Combat Form killed by a "headshot" after it hits the ground.

* ''Film/TheReturnOfTheLivingDead'': Played for laughs when Burt and Ernie think that destroying the head will take care of the zombie they accidentally resurrected, since that's the way it worked in ''Film/{{Night of the Living Dead|1968}}''. This just results in a headless zombie chasing after them.

->''"Foolss! You cannot KILL what doesss not LIVE!"''
-->-- CatchPhrase of '''Judge Death''', ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''

* ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': The Dark Judges are incredibly hard to destroy for this reason. They tend to ignore Lawgiver gunfire completely and even incinerating their undead bodies inadvertently causes [[FightingAShadow their spirits to break free]]. One of their {{Catch Phrase}}s is "You cannot kill what does not live!"

* ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': The Dark Judges were introduced for precisely this reason, as most of [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner Judge Dredd]]'s enemies ended up with a bullet to the head, leaving him with a rather depleted RoguesGallery. They tend to ignore Lawgiver gunfire completely and even incinerating their undead bodies inadvertently causes [[FightingAShadow their spirits to break free]]. One of their {{Catch Phrase}}s is "You cannot kill what does not live!"

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'' and ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'':

* ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' series: Subverted. Flood Combat Forms can be eliminated with a precise shot to the Infection Form "piloting" the body. When this happens, the Combat Form will fall over as if dead, and a gaping hole will be seen where the Infection Form once was. However, another Infection Form may wander over at any time and take control of the Combat Form again, with the Combat Form having the same amount of health it had before it was "killed." This means that in order to prevent dead Combat Forms from coming back to life in this manner, the player either has to either kill every Infection Form in the room or manually dismember each Combat Form killed by a headshot after it hits the ground.

* ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'': The Dark Judges were introduced for precisely this reason, as most of [[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner Judge Dredd]]'s enemies ended up with a bullet to the head, leaving him with a rather depleted RoguesGallery. They tend to ignore Lawgiver gunfire completely and even incinerating their undead bodies completely inadvertently causes [[FightingAShadow their spirits to break free]]. One of their {{Catch Phrase}}s is "You cannot kill what does not live!"

When the dead walk the Earth, many of us will probably just aim for the head. However, sometimes that isn't enough. For some undead characters, they gain an odd (but sometimes limited) form of NighInvulnerability, where because they do not actually rely on most of their internal organs anymore, they can take damage that would instantly kill or incapacitate them if they were alive and just keep on coming. They can [[ImmuneToBullets take a shotgun blast to the chest]], get completely dismembered, or even be set on fire and burned into a skeletal crisp, and they will continue to move and try to attack you.

Unlike traditional NighInvulnerability, the level of durability can be stronger or weaker depending on the work in question. Some interpretations will allow the undead to be slowed down or disabled altogether by removing all of their arms and legs, completely paralyzed by decapitation, or even killed instantly by a bullet or blow to the head as a sort of AchillesHeel. Skeletons, however, tend to get different treatment, often being able to reassemble themselves after being "killed" in the same manner as PullingThemselvesTogether, making this a SuperTrope.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

Examples:

* ComicBook/SpiderMan: Notably subverted with Digger. He's both undead and takes extreme amounts of damage over the course of his debut without injury. However, this was actually due to the fact that he had a HealingFactor, as he was reanimated by gamma radiation from nuclear weapons tests near his grave site, and Spidey exploited this fact to kill him in his first appearance.

* ''VideoGame/{{Halo}}'' series: Subverted. Flood Combat Forms can be eliminated with a precise shot to the Infection Form "piloting" the body. When this happens, the Combat Form will fall over as if dead, and a gaping hole will be seen where the Infection Form once was. However, another Infection Form may wander over at any time and take control of the Combat Form again, with the Combat Form having the same amount of health it had before it was "killed." This means that in order to prevent dead Combat Forms from coming back to life in this manner, the player either has to either kill every Infection Form in the room or manually dismember each Combat Form killed by a headshot after it hits the ground.