We discuss our favorite flamethrowers in movies at the 1:29 mark of the Qt3 Movie Podcast of London Has Fallen.
Tom Chick
3. The Thing
2. 28 Weeks Later
- The Deer Hunter
Dingus
3. Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
- X2
Kelly Wand
3. Lethal Weapon 4
2. The Deer Hunter
- The Thing
What are your favorite flamethrowers in movies? Listen to the show to hear us go on about ours and to hear Kelly Wand read some suprising listener picks. Send in your 3x3 picks and any ideas you have about the next movie to [email protected].
I don’t know why, but Arachnophobia immediately came to mind. MacGyver’d flamethrowers cont, right?
night of the creeps
http://www.crackle.com/night-of-the-creeps/2479487
the hidden
the beast (one of the best tank movies)
weird how they all fire in the same direction and angle…
when trumpets fade (bonus points for the use of a wwii flamethrower on non-bunker targets and used by the pudgy shy glasses wearing guy in the squad)
Watchmen:
The Comedian’s cigar lighter:
and an improvised flamethrower:
The Day Of The Triffids - it’s the only language those alien bastards understand.
Also, there’s such a thing as the Internet Move Firearms Database. I don’t know whether that’s awesome or creepy or both.
- Pork Chop Hill -
A desperate last battle in Korea before all sides say “truce, guys”, there is a good side of a flamethrower to be on and a bad side, and if you’re stuck in a foxhole or pillbox, it’s gonna seem extra bad.
- The Thing From Another World
It’s a flamethrower in the sense that you have a flare gun and buckets of gasoline to dump on a murderous alien cucumber.
- Spaceballs: The Flamethrower!
Moichandising! Moichandising! The kids love this one.
Honorable Mention to Kenny McCormick in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, who dies of a tragic flamethrower accident inspired by watching a dirty movie (and by George Clooney replacing his heart with a baked potato).
One thing I loved about The Thing’s flamethrowers is that there is a plausible reason to have them. Now I don’t know if this is typical of Antarctic (or Arctic) research/etc stations. But it makes sense on paper: it’s fucking cold as shit. Things freeze in a way that you’re not used to. A Flamethrower would be useful on occasion. It’s also the only weapon they could ever hope to defeat the creature with. Of course there’s really no hope in that. What an amazing movie.
I love the contrast between Alien’s makeshift flamethrowers and Aliens’ “what the pros use” Incendiary Units. Somewhere between The Thing and the first two alien movies I became a very flamethrower happy kid. All of my monster fighting fantasies hinged on flamethrowers. “Giant ants are invading, our weapons are useless!” “You mean except flamethrowers”. There’s something primal about wielding fire to defeat demons and I think it’s one of those things that will never truly go out of style. And that’s especially true of makeshift flamethrowers.
In Reptilicus - Denmark’s (Danish-American production, it’s true) laughably bad but none the less important contribution to the Kaiju genre - we find that our weapons are useless against the beast, because it keeps regenerating it’s tissue. At one point someone hits on the bright idea to use a flame thrower on the beast and it turns out to be really effective (driving it off in fact). So then later they’re like “break out the flamethrowers and cook the sucker” and someone else is all like “acid breath too scary”. And they wind up poisoning the creature instead. But I always liked that (1) someone actually thought about the problem for a spell and reasonably solved it and (2) it’s a plausible-if-you-squint reason not to go back to the well. As opposed to the old trope of “this tactic proved successful but we’re never going back to it”. The flamethrower use in this movie stuck with me moreso than the ones in Them!, but I think the latter’s contribution to flamethrower related media are important. Also a different scene in Them! sort of haunted my nightmares for awhile and it’s the strongest thing I took from the movie (the scene where the guy helps the kids into the air duct or tunnel up in the wall or whatever it is and then gets et).
