10. Re-Animator
Dr. Hill tries to take the credit for Herbert West's discovery, which West isn't too happy about. So he bashes Hill over the head with a shovel, then uses it to brutally hack his head off. The decapitation itself is pretty gross...not the clean, fast kind that I tend to like, but this beheading must be included on my list. The reason why is because I love the fact that directly afterwards, West keeps trying to make Dr. Hill's head stand up in a tray, and it just won't stay upright. So finally, he puts one of those old paper impaler things in the tray and jams the head down on that. Also, I think it's great that a decapitated head has a major speaking role in a film. (If you haven't seen Re-Animator, yes, the head does come back to life. Hence the title of the movie.)
9. Tales of Terror
There are three separate stories within this film, and "The Black Cat" is the vignette in which the decapitation occurs. Peter Lorre plays a wino by the name of Herringbone. Upset over the fact that his wife Annabel is having an affair with esteemed wine connoisseur Fortunato (played by Vincent Price), Herringbone walls both of them in his cellar and leaves them to die. Because his drinking has gotten so extreme, he is prone to bizarre hallucinations. One of these takes place after he has killed Fortunato and Annabel. It is filmed very oddly, with the screen skewed way out of proportion (done so presumably because special effects in the 60s left something to be desired). Annabel and Fortunato come at him, both grinning devilishly, and proceed to wrench his head from his body with their bare hands. Then they play a game of "keep-away", tossing the head back and forth between each other.
8. Evil Dead II
Ash's unfortunate girlfriend Linda has been taken by "the evil". Now she's pretty demonic herself and out for Ash's blood. As she lunges at him out in the forest, one swipe of a shovel by our man Ash takes her head cleanly off. "The relationship was cut short." Unfortunately both the head and body come back to haunt him.
7. The Empire Strikes Back
During the vision Luke has on Dagobah, he and Vader flare up their lightsabers for a duel to the death. After their lightsabers connect three times, Luke swings hard at Vader's neck, severing his head amidst an explosion of sparks. Of course, what really makes this scene is the fact that once the front of Vader's helmet explodes, it's Luke's face we see underneath.
6. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Once the Sultan learns that the Baron has taken everything from his treasury, he flies into a rage and hacks off his treasurer's head with a scimitar. The head goes flying across the room and lands in a woman's lap, where it promptly winks at her.
5. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Only the penitant man shall pass. Well, this unfortunate aid to the Nazis didn't seem to know that and neither did his predecessors. An enormous blade slices his head clean off and causes it to go rolling with incredible speed down the stairs of the temple and straight across the seal to wind up at the base of the cliffs. This isn't the best screenshot, admittedly, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to pull a decent still-frame of a decapitation when the head is rolling THAT fast.
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Arthur and his knights are quite skeptical when Tim the Enchanter insists that the guardian of the cave (a cute little white bunny) is really a fearsome monster. One of Arthur's knights marches down to kill it, just to prove Tim wrong. Unfortunately, Tim wasn't wrong, and the rabbit leaps at the knight's throat, ripping his head off entirely.
3. The Frighteners
For this one, I really have to fall back on the most basic meaning of the word "decapitation", which is the removal of one's head from one's body. For in this film, the head in question was actually blown to bits by a shotgun, not neatly severed like most beheadings. But the scene is so fantastic, it has to be included. Special Agent Milton Dammers (played wonderfully by Jeffrey Combs) gets his head blown off by the villainess towards the end of the film. What's so brilliant about it is the fact that right before she fires the shotgun, Dammers regards her with this look of absolute bewilderment (he did not expect to see her at that time). As soon as his head is blown to pieces, his ghost head with the same bewildered expression pops up in its place. (This is the second time Jeffrey Combs has made my list, incidentally. The first was in Re-Animator. Although this time, he was the one who lost his head.)
2. Sleepy Hollow
The Headless Horseman takes his axe to the neck of Magistrate Philipse. The head spins around several times in mid-air, then goes rolling along the ground to end up between Ichabod's legs. This film had a lot of pretty decapitations, but this one was my personal favorite.
1. The Omen
Expected and yet unexpected, the "sliding glass incident" has got to be my favorite decapitation of all time. The audience wasn't sure if Jennings (David Warner) was going to die or not...the marked photograph suggested as such, but perhaps fate could be altered this time. I guess not. A truck's emergency brake gives way, causing the truck to back down an alley with considerable speed. When something prevents the truck from going any farther, the force causes a large pane of glass to come flying out of the back and across the alley where it neatly severs Jennings's head from his body. It was edited so well that by the time more squeamish viewers were expected to remove their hands from their eyes, the head is still rolling.
Honorable Mention
The Dagger of Amon Ra
Although it's not a film, "The Dagger of Amon Ra", a computer game published back in 1993 by Sierra On-Line, featured quite an amusing decapitation. Your character, Laura Bow, discovers a corpse on the floor of a museum. His identity is not known, however, as his neck has been roughly cut. His head is nowhere to be found. If you continue exploring the museum, you will find a life mask room. There are models of heads all along the walls. However, one seems to be slightly grey and deteriorating. Why is that? "It's...it's...it's...ZIGGY'S HEAD!"
