The humble flamethrower is one of the most time-honored and flashy weapons to be used in any movie, making for some incredibly memorable scenes. Modern flamethrowers have been around for a shockingly long time in human history, first documented as early as World War I. While flamethrowers don’t technically qualify as one of cinema’s most iconic firearms, the dazzling (and horrifying) weapons of mass destruction have made for some creative and visceral action setpieces over the years.
Flamethrower scenes usually appear in one of three types of movies – Action movies, war films, and horror movies with a more action-oriented flavor to them. The dramatic spurts of fire the weapons produce are always cathartic to see wielded on-screen, whether by a hero or a villain. Taking down everything from zombies to aliens to innocent bystanders, the appearance of a flamethrower always makes for a good show.
10
MacReady Torches The Thing
The Thing
In The Thing, the titular alien menace seems to be effectively immortal, able to shapeshift and regenerate in an instant to compensate for any physical wounds. Luckily, the Antarctic research base is stocked with some handy tools meant for clearing massive amounts of ice buildup, M2A1-7 flamethrowers. Stoic helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady manages to get his hands on one as the devious infection of the creature becomes apparent, using it to threaten his crewmates to keep them at arms’ length.
MacReady actually uses the weapon when The Thing takes over the corpse of one of his comrades, biting off the arms of Doctor Blair with a massive maw sprouting from the torso that then morphs into a horrific snake-like head. MacReady lights up the whole mess with his flamethrower, causing The Thing to writhe in pain, screeching an inhuman scream. The creature almost manages to get away with the infamous head spider, but MacReady is able to catch the critter with yet another white-hot spurt from the nozzle.
9
Doyle Flushes Out A German Bunker
Saving Private Ryan
As cool as flamethrowers objectively are in an action setting, the real horror of how these weapons were used in actual warfare isn’t lost to every filmmaker. One of the most harrowing depictions of combat ever, Saving Private Ryan, demonstrates just how grisly the real usage of flamethrowers in combat was in the throes of World War II. In the middle of an intense firefight on Omaha Beach, Private First Class Doyle is tasked with using his M1 flamethrower to clear out a fortified bunker of German soldiers.
Hoisting the massive, bulky weapon, Doyle fires a stream of flames down the hallway of the bunker, causing the entire building to erupt with flames right up to the second story. Another soldier shouts for the men to conserve their ammo, allowing the flames to slowly and agonizingly kill their enemies instead in a cold act of battlefield pragmatism. The dying screams of the enemy soldiers as they fall from the bunker’s second story is a chilling sight that reminds the viewer how terrible war can truly be.
8
Ripley Destroys The Xenomorph Nest
Aliens
Aliens dialed up the horror of the original film by presenting audiences with an entire colony of the deadly Xenomorph monsters, elaborating more on their insect-like social structures. The film describes how the aliens operate like ants, with a queen presiding over an egg chamber full of facehuggers ready to spread the parasitic terrors. Ripley comes to destroy this nest with an incredibly cool jury-rigged weapon, an M41A Pulse Rifle bolted onto a futuristic flamethrower.
Using the flamethrower, Ripley cleanses the alien menace with a purifying stream of searing flame, neutralizing the next generation of Xenomorphs planned for the colony as the queen screeches in anger. After seeing the Xenomorphs claim the lives of so many colonists and marines over the course of the film, it’s incredibly gratifying to see Ripley light them up. As frightening and deadly as the aliens may be, this scene proves that they don’t hold a candle to some of humankind’s own manufactured horrors.
7
Chloe Saves Paul From A Test Subject
Overlord
Flamethrowers are commonly thought of as premiere zombie-killing weapons, but the devices show up startlingly few times in actual zombie movies. But as both a horror film teeming with undead and a World War II period piece, Overlord was the perfect place to showcase a brilliant flamethrower vs. zombie scene, as the French civilian Chloe attempts to save her little brother, Paul, from a ravenous mutant zombie resulting from the Nazis profane experiments. Escaping via a sewer, Chloe and Paul are soon cornered by a ravenous test subject.
Startlingly, the beast doesn’t go down even after several shots straight through the head, usually a guaranteed kill in zombie media. To finish the job, Chloe has to stumble across an unattended Flammenwerfer 35, which she uses to direct a fiery steam at the rampaging creature, finally putting it down for good. It’s refreshing to see a zombie movie that actually explores how effective such a weapon might be in taking out hordes of the undead masses.
6
Rory Fights Calvin With The Incinerator
Life
As far as rip-offs of Ridley Scott’s Alien go, Life is a pretty interesting science fiction horror movie revolving around an alien organism captured by a group of astronauts in space that soon proves to be too dangerous for them to handle. The creature, hilariously nicknamed “Calvin”, soon proves itself too deadly to be left alive, able to kill and absorb the biomass of any creature it touches while harboring some disturbing intelligence. Upon being locked in a lab with Calvin, Ryan Reynolds’ Rory decides enough is enough.
Ripping the lab’s incinerator off of the wall and using it as an ad hoc flamethrower, Rory attempts to burn the wily monster to death. Unfortunately for him, Rory isn’t able to make his fuel last long enough, and he runs out before the tiny organism darts out of hiding and crawls down his throat, dissolving him from the inside out. This tense action sequence is one of the most brutal scenes in Life, proving that a flamethrower isn’t always enough to triumph over a devious alien.
5
The Government Tries Setting The Blob On Fire
The Blob (1988)
1988’s remake of The Blob is one of the most underrated horror movies of the 80s, even if the special effects may feel especially aged at times. Throughout the film, The Blob seeps and creeps through an idyllic small town until it becomes a massive roiling wave of fleshy viscous mass, having absorbed the bodies of countless victims already. Government agents clad in hazmat suits are deployed against the creature, hoping that a flamethrower will be just the tool to put an end to its reign of oozing terror.
Unfortunately for the hapless government agent that’s given the honor of firing upon the beast with a flamethrower, The Blob is hardly phased. Extending a skinny tendril, The Blob plugs the nozzle of the flamethrower mid-stream, causing it to back up and explode the tank, burning the poor man wielding it alive. Even if this attempt doesn’t work out too well, the subsequent use of a fire extinguisher to control the flames reveals The Blob’s actual weakness: frigid temperatures.
4
Max Duels The Doof Warrior
Mad Max: Fury Road
Mad Max: Fury Road was nothing if not a spectacle of what creative scrapmetal terrors George Miller could dream up on a big modern budget, with the signature Mad Max vehicles of the film being the franchise’s most impressive. As great as the trucks and cars are, Immortan Joe’s band of zealous war boys also stand out as enjoyable freaks, particularly the fabled Doof Warrior. Serving as a drummer boy of sorts, the Doof Warrior sits in a harness above the Doof Wagon, allowing him to spur the convoy to motion with some heavy licks from his guitar.
Max learns that the Doof Warrior’s guitar isn’t just for show when he duels the blind musician atop his vehicle, prompting him to fire a jet stream of flame from the double-necked beast’s head at Max. For a society that sees fuel as such a precious resource, it says a lot that Immortan Joe is willing to give the Doof Warrior a flamethrower guitar. It’s more than worth it, as the Doof Warrior spurting a jet of flame from his guitar as the war convoy rages behind him is one of the greatest shots in cinema history.
3
Jack Horner Uses The Phoenix As A Flamethrower
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
It seems odd for a family-friendly animated movie like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish to have an awesome flamethrower scene, but that’s exactly what happens thanks to John Mulaney’s Jack Horner. Obsessed with hoarding magic items, the evil Jack Horner pursues Puss and company to the Wishing Star, encountering some ferocious magical plant life along the way. Though the plants chew through his elite “Baker’s Dozen”, Horner fires back with an item from his magical nanny bag, the mythical phoenix.
After allowing Jimminy Cricket to admire the bird for a moment, Jack wrings its neck, forcing it to fire jets of flame out of its mouth. Cackling with reckless abandon, Jack takes no care to avoid catching his employees in the stream of fire, half-heartedly calling out “Don’t be where I’m flame-throwing!“. It’s quite hilarious to see such fiery destruction unleashed in a kid’s movie, and the stunning animation makes it that much more spectacular to watch.
2
Donny Claims His First Victim
Don’t Go in the House
Don’t Go in the House is a forgotten horror film from the 70s that poses a very important question; What if Norman Bates had a flamethrower? Doing for fire what the average slasher does for blades, the film centers on the abused young man Donny, whose mother dies after a lifetime of abuse and torturing her child with fire. Unable to process her demise, Donny turns to luring women into his house in order to string them up and immolate them to death with a flamethrower and a fire suit he happens to find in a army surplus store.
Don’t Go in the House is a fascinating twist on the classic abused-child slasher trope that swaps out blades for flames, and the scene where Donny claims his first victim is memorably grisly. Naked and chained to the ceiling of a fire-proofed room lined with metal walls, the hapless Kathy’s screams are hard to forget as Donny mercilessly burns her alive. It’s a shock that more horror movies haven’t gotten mileage out of villains that use flamethrowers.
1
Rick Dalton Lights Up Susan Atkins
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Sometimes a flamethrower performs so well in a movie scene that it almost deserves its own nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The best example of this is in the climax of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in which the director finally returns to his time-honored tradition of killing real-life monsters on-screen in as gruesome a way as possible a la Hitler in Inglorious Basterds. This time around, the target is Susan “Sadie” Atkins, the real killer of actress Sharon Tate and follower of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.
After a failed assassination attempt on Cliff Booth, the heavily-injured Sadie stumbles into the pool of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton, who was oblivious to the battle unfolding inside. Responding promptly, Rick grabs a flamethrower movie prop from his shed and burns Sadie alive while she trashes violently in her pool. Killing someone by burning them to death while they’re standing in water is a hilarious layer of irony that the movie somehow gets away with, making for one of the best flamethrower scenes ever.