Comments may contain spoilers
In these films, snakes or their venom are intentionally used as weapons to guard a space or to attack, punish, threaten, or kill someone, including when they are used as a weapon against oneself in suicide.
- A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)
As a cowardly farmer begins to fall for the mysterious new woman in town, he must put his newly found courage to the test when her husband, a notorious gun-slinger, announces his arrival.
- Alien from the Deep (1989)
Two members of Greenpeace discover that a local factory sheds radioactive waste into an active volcano, which has created a terrifying creature that wreaks havoc in the area.
- Angel of Vengeance (1987)
A young woman newly arrived in a small town comes up against a crazed group of survivalists who have killed a party of motorcyclists in the desert. They capture and rape her, but she escapes and makes plans to take her vengeance on them.
- The Blade Master (Cave Dwellers) (1983)
As a human sacrifice to the gods, several women are thrown down into a pit full of human skulls and hissing and growling snakes.
- Black Samurai (1976)
Robert Sand, agent of D.R.A.G.O.N. (Defense Reserve Agency Guardian Of Nations), is playing tennis on his vacation with a beautiful black girl, when his commanding officers ask him to save a Chinese girl who happens to be Sand's girlfriend, and the daughter of a top Eastern Ambassador. The ransom for the abduction was the secret for a terrific new weapon - the freeze bomb - but the 'Warlock' ... See full summary »
- Bride of the Gorilla (1951)
Raymond Burr is fighting with a man in a jungle in the Amazon. He sees a snake on the ground so he knocks the man down next to it and the man is bitten and dies from snakebite.
- Bullet Train (2022)
An assassin called The Hornet steals a Boomslang from the zoo and uses its venom to kill people.
- Chandu the Magician (1932)
Three men aim rifles at Chandu and his friends so Chandu turns the three rifles into snakes and the gunmen run away in terror.
- Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936)
A snake is dropped onto Charlie Chan's bed to kill him.
- Chato's Land (1972)
Chato throws rattlesnakes at his enemy who is bitten on the face and dies.
- Circus of Horrors (1960)
A fugitive plastic surgeon who runs a circus takes in beautiful facially-scarred female criminals, gives them perfect new faces, then turns them into circus stars. When they threaten to leave the circus, he kills them. One of his stars, angry that he took away her top billing, threatens to expose his criminal past, so he puts a snake in her trailer while she is taking a shower, to kill her. It wraps around her ankles and she screams, then we see no more. Later we see her alive and kicking. All she tells the doctor is "Fortunately, I screamed." and we are left to assume that someone came and saved her from the snake.
- Cleopatra (1963)
Cleopatra commits suicide by asp bite, but in this one she puts her hand in a basket containing figs and a snake.
- Cleopatra (1999)
Cleopatra uses a venomous snake to kill herself.
- Cleopatra (1934)
Cleopatra uses a venomous snake to kill herself.
- Cold Creek Manor (2003)
Someone fills a house with snakes to terrorize a family.
- Collateral Damage (2002)
Columbian guerrillas kill a man by forcing his mouth to stay open with a clamp and letting a snake crawl down his throat. He dies in about a minute.
- Color of Night (1994)
Bruce Willis opens his mailbox and finds a rattlesnake, put there to bite him.
- Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Thulsa Doom, the evil head of a murderous snake cult, turns his snakes into arrows and shoots them with a bow, killing whoever is struck by them. Then they turn back into snakes.
- Cowboy (1958)
A cowboy on a cattle drive picks up a rattlesnake and brings it to scare Jack Lemmon, who runs away screaming. Another cowboy picks it up with a stick and throws it. It gets tossed back and forth until it finally wraps around the neck of a cowboy and bites him on the throat. It's an unintentional weapon, but deadly nonetheless.
- Dark Tide (1994)
A woman releases a bunch of captive sea snakes into a tub and later pushes a man into the tub where he is bitten multiple times before he dies.
- Death on the Nile (1978)
Somebody put a live cobra in Hercule Poirot's bathroom in a failed attempt to kill him.
- Curse of the Yellow Snake (Der Fluch der gelben Schlange) (1963)
A man opens a package delivered to him to find a snake inside a box, put there to kill him.
- Devil Woman (Bruka Queen of Evil) (1970)
A snake woman commands snakes to kill the people who killed her parents.
- The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)
A woman is forced to stand above a pit full of snakes on a wooden beam that is slowly moving into a wall. When the beam disappears there will be nothing left for her to stand on and she will fall into the snake pit.
- Creature with the Blue Hand (1967)
An evil doctor kills a woman with a snake and fills a room with snakes to terrify a woman to forcer her to do what he wants.
- Distant Drums (1951)
Gary Cooper holds a rattlesnake up to the face of a man to torture him into talking.
- Double Exposure (1982)
A psycho-killer puts a rattlesnake in a garbage bag and puts the bag over a woman's head until she dies.
- Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922)
Evil criminal mastermind Dr. Mabuse extracts venom from a snake and uses it to poison a woman.
- Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
Dr. Phibes' assistant Vulnavia puts a large basket full of snakes in a room with a man they want to kill. He kills two of the snakes but a third snake bites him on the arm. He sucks out the poison, then goes to make a telephone call, but the telephone is rigged to kill him. This is one of the most plausible examples of using snakes to kill someone, because the snakes were not meant to kill him, they were used to get the man to use the telephone.
- Dragnet (1987)
As a human sacrifice in a cult ritual, a woman is thrown into a pool of water to be killed by an enormous Anaconda.
- Enter the Devil (1972)
Devil cultists throw a man into a pit filled with rattlesnakes.
- Enter the Dragon (1973)
Bruce Lee finds a venomous cobra left on top of an entryway to guard it, so he catches the snake and stuffs it into a bag. Later he releases the cobra into a room to scare out the men working there so he can enter the room.
- Escort West (1959)
A man in a fight loses his gun then finds a rattlesnake in a cave. He picks up the snake and throws it at his enemy who followed him into the cave.
- Black Cobra Woman (1976)
A guy who gets his kicks murdering women with venomous snakes is then eaten alive from the inside by a mutant snake that is put into his anus by his victim's lesbian lover. (Seriously)
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
Grindelwald waves his wand to make two giant snakes appear to strike at one of the men keeping him prisoner.
- Fire Down Below (1997)
After some thugs put rattlesnakes in his room to kill him, Steven Segal returns the favor and fills their truck with rattlesnakes.
- Gold of the Amazon Women (1979 TV Movie)
A drug dealer pays a bellboy to put a deadly venomous snake into a man's suitcase. When the man opens the suitcase, the snake springs out at him, but he catches and kills the snake.
- Golden Needles (1974)
Dozens of snakes are poured out of wooden boxes onto a floor in an attempt to stop a man from getting away.
- Gunga Din (1939)
Imprisoned in the dungeon of the Kali Temple, a stronghold of the Thuggee cult, a British officer is whipped then threatened with being thrown into a pit full of snakes. Later the head Thuggee guru throws himself into the pit to kill himself.
- Hard Target (1993)
Jean-Claude Van Damme punches a rattlesnake in the face then makes a trap with it to kill one of the men who is hunting him.
- Hercules (2014)
Hercules is born the illegitimate son of Zeus, the king of the gods, and a mortal woman. This infuriates Zeus' wife, the goddess Hera. She sends two snakes to kill baby Hercules, but he catches the snakes and kills them instead.
- Holes (2003)
A boy wishing to harm himself takes off his shoe and sock and holds his foot in front of a rattlesnake so it will bite him.
- Horns (2013)
A man accused of murdering his girlfriend, grows devil horns and finds snakes around him that he can use as weapons.
- Jennifer (1978)
Jennifer was once a Christian snake handler with the mental power to control the snakes but gave it up until some of her evil rich elite girls school classmates kill her kitten. Then it's showtime as she conjures snakes out of nowhere to kill off her enemies.
- Joshua (1976)
Joshua catches a live rattlesnake and throws if off a cliff onto a man who is immediately bitten by the snake and dies in minutes.
- The Legend of Drunken Master (Drunken Master II) (1994)
A girl who sells snakes in an outdoor market joins a fight against corrupt foreigners by tossing a bag full of snakes at a several men aiming their rifles. The men are terrified of the snakes and drop the rifles, allowing the girl's comrades to run up and grab the rifles, knowing that her snakes are harmless.
- The Jungle Book (1942)
The king's treasure chamber in the lost city is guarded by a talking cobra.
- Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
A black mamba with venom so toxic it can kill someone in 20 minutes is hidden in a briefcase full of cash and bites the face of a poor slob who thought he was going to be rich. But that's not the worst thing that happens to him - as he lays paralyzed and dying, he is forced to listen to Daryl Hannah read a handwritten list of facts about the black mamba for what seems like the full 20 minutes.
- Dante's Inferno (1911)
In Dante's vision of Hell thieves are tortured by snakes.
- Labyrinth (1986)
Jareth, The Goblin King, holds a crystal ball that turns into a snake that he throws at a young girl to warn her to forget about her stolen baby brother. The snake wraps around her neck, then turns into a scarf.
- Land of the Pharaohs (1955)
In an elaborate murder plot, a woman who wants to kill a queen gives a flute to the queen's son and teaches him to play a song that will attract cobras. When the boy plays the song in the queen's chamber, a cobra obtained from a snake charmer is released from a basket outside the chamber. The deadly snake is attracted to the flute playing and crawls next to the boy. When she sees the snake, the queen jumps on it and dies to protect her son.
- Live and Let Die (1973)
A voodoo cult uses snakes to kill their prisoners. Bond finds a snake that was set loose in his bathroom to kill him.
- Hercules Against the Barbarians (1964)
Mongol soldiers lure Hercules to fall into a pit with a giant snake that fights him.
- Fair Game (Mamba) (1988)
A man is so upset that his mate broke up with him that he puts a Black Mamba in her windowless loft and locks her inside, hoping the snake will kill her.
- Eaten Alive! (1980)
A cult leader uses assassins who put cobra venom on their poison darts to kill people.
- Maverick (1994)
Maverick is tied up, sitting on a horse, with a noose around his neck tied to a tree branch, so that if the horse runs away he will hang to death. Just in case that doesn't work and he gets off the horse, his captors also drop a bag full of rattlesnakes on the ground below him to kill him.
- Moonraker (1979)
Bond is thrown into a pool and forced to fight a gigantic python or die, as a bunch of beautiful women stand around practicing their evil smiles.
- Murder by Death (1976)
A snake is put in Charlie Chan's bedroom to kill him.
- Murders in the Zoo (1933)
A man uses a severed snake head made into a device filled with snake venom that can bite and kill people.
- Nadine (1987)
A box full of rattlesnakes is used to threaten people to talk, then it is dumped into a dark room full of people. Also, Nadine finds a rattlesnake in her bed put there to kill her.
- Natural Born Killers (1994)
A dead Navaho man somehow conjures up a field full of rattlesnakes to bite and kill the people who killed him. I think that's what happened. Hard to say for sure.
- Never Say Never Again (1983)
Barbara Carrera throws a snake through the open window of a man's car and he's so freaked out he crashes into a wall and dies.
- Next of Kin (1989)
Snakeman is a Kentucky Hillbilly who drives his bus full of pet snakes to Chicago to use them in a battle between hillbillies and mobsters.
- Bombay Waterfront (Paul Temple Returns) (1952)
A detective shoots at a snake that guards a room, but hits and breaks the floor instead, revealing a secret hiding place.
- Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
Uma Thurman is Medusa, a Gorgon who has live snakes growing out of her head instead of hair. Anybody who looks at Medusa directly turns to stone.
- Phobia (1980)
A man being cured of his fear of snakes by an experimental therapy is eventually murdered by rattlesnake bite.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)
Blackbeard's daughter picks up a venomous snake and puts its fangs in Jack Sparrow's face, but leaves him unharmed.
- Posse from Hell (1961)
Four murdering and raping escaped convicts tie up a woman and leave her lying next to a rattlesnake so it will kill her.
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
The leader of the Hassansins can control venomous Vipers. He carries them under his coat and releases them out his sleeve to kill people. He sends a group of them to burrow through the sand then fly out and kill everybody.
- RRR (2022)
A captive man catches a snake. When his captor returns he throws the snake at him and the snake bites the man on the arm.
- Race with the Devil (1975)
Two rattlesnakes are put in the cupboard of a motor home to kill its four occupants.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
The Ark of the Covenant is hidden in an underground temple that is full of snakes which were left there to guard the temple.
- River's End (2005)
A teenage boy trying to rescue a girl puts a rattlesnake in the kidnappers' bag and when one of them opens it up, the snake springs out and bites him on the cheek.
- Shadow of the Hawk (1976)
The ghost of a Native American shaman conjures up a snake that she sends to bite another shaman.
- The Killer Snakes (1974)
A bullied man uses his pet snakes to kill his tormentors.
- Devil Woman (1973)
This is a sequel to Devil Woman (1970.) The same woman, born with Medusa hair and the power to control snakes, continues to use snakes to kill the people who killed her family. Bruka, the Queen of Evil, uses snakes to kill kidnapped female virgins in bondage during every full moon.
- Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)
Sherlock Holmes finds a hidden compartment under a mummy case where a valuable necklace is hidden. A snake has been put inside the compartment to attack anyone who tries to take the necklace.
- Shotgun (1955)
Apache Indians tie a man to stakes with rawhide that tightens as it dries, slowly pulling him closer to a rattlesnake that is also tied to a stake next to his head.
- Shotgun Stories (2007)
A man uses a Cottonmouth to kill his half brother's dog.
- High Risk (Meltdown) (Shu dan long wei) (1995)
A terrorist pulls dozens of snakes out of a bag and throws them at a woman who is then bitten.
- Sisters of Death (1977)
A man seeking revenge on a group of young women who killed his daugter, kills them one by one. He locks one of the women in a basement room with a rattlesnake to get rid of her, and that absurd plan actually works.
- Fangs (Snakes) (1974)
An old snake collector kills off his enemies with venomous snakes.
- Soldier (1998)
A soldier throws his enemy into a huge snake pit to kill him.
- Sssssss (1973)
A mad scientist and venom expert puts a Black Mamba snake in a shower a man is using to try to kill him. He also traps another man in a basement with a giant snake.
- Stanley (1972)
Tim uses his pet rattlesnake Stanley to kill people.
- Strange New World (1975 TV Movie)
180 years after asteroids destroyed Earth a tribe of people who live in an abandoned zoo throw people into a pit full of snakes when they are sentenced to capital punishment.
- Texas Across the River (1966)
A Comanche medicine man performs a death ceremony with rattlesnakes intending to kill a young woman.
- The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
A couple of bad guys jump in a big pit to shoot at him, so Cable Hogue throws some big rattlesnakes at them to force them out.
- The Big Doll House (1971)
A sadistic guard at a women's prison uses a cobra to torture female prisoners.
- The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968)
Fu Manchu kidnaps beautiful women then forces deadly snakes to bite them. The women are immune to the snake venom but they become deadly weapons who can kill men by kissing them on the lips with "the kiss of death." He also uses one of the snakes to kill a man since men are not immune to the snake venom.
- The Craft (1996)
A high school girl witch conjures up thousands of snakes to torment another girl.
- The Devil's Brigade (1968)
A rattlesnake is left under a Corporal's bedcovers as a prank, but one which could have had serious consequences.
- The Dude Ranger (1934)
A man drops a rattlesnake onto the bed of a sleeping man to try to kill him.
- The Fortune (1975)
Two bumbling idiots buy a rattlesnake planning on using it to kill the woman they live with but it dies before they can carry out their plan.
- The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
A man intentionally throws a rock at a snake on a branch to knock it down onto the head of his enemy.
- The Harvey Girls (1946)
Someone puts a rattlesnake in the Harvey girls' closet to try to scare them into leaving town, so a man pulls out his pistol and shoots the snake.
- The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
A girl picks up a rattlesnake and stabs its fangs into the back of her brother's head.
- The Jungle Book (1994)
The treasure room in the monkey temple is guarded by a giant snake.
- The Kid Brother (1927)
Harold Lloyd picks up a stick without looking at it to fight off a man who is trying to rape a young woman. Unknown to Lloyd, the stick has a gopher snake wrapped around it. He waves the stick threateningly and is surprised when the attacker runs away, believing it was his ferocity and not the snake that scared him away. Then Lloyd accidentally touches the snake, which terrifies him too. He throws the stick onto the ground and we see a snake crawl away.
- The Last of the Clintons (1935)
A rattlesnake is dumped out of a box into a cabin to kill a guy, but it kills a different guy by mistake.
- The Lost City (2022)
A man and woman are tied up in the middle of the floor of a temple that is covered with snakes that endanger their lives.
- The Mighty Quinn (1989)
A snake is put in a man's hotel room to kill him.
- The Missing (2003)
An Indian witch extracts rattlesnake venom and uses it in his witchcraft to kill.
- The Mummy Returns (2001)
In a 3-way snake-used-as-a-weapon scene, a re-incarnated ancient Egyptian princess holds a snake to the face of Brendan Fraser's brother in law, but Fraser stops her so she throws the snake at Fraser's face to kill him but he catches it. She tells one of her henchman to shoot him but Fraser throws the snake back into the face of the henchman first and kills him.
- The Naked Prey (1965)
A cobra snake is thrown into a ring of burning wood with no exit except the place where a tied up man's face has been placed, forcing the snake to bite him in the face to escape.
- The Perils of Pauline (1914)
A Gypsy woman catches a snake and hides it in a basket full of flowers that she gives to a woman hoping it will bite and kill her.
- The Player (1992)
A movie studio executive receives a rattlesnake post card then finds that someone put a real rattlesnake in his SUV to scare him and/or bite him.
- The Rattlesnake (1913)
A man puts a rattlesnake in the bed of another man hoping it will bite him and kill him.
- The Resurrection of Jake the Snake (2015)
Jake The Snake uses pythons against his wrestling opponents.
- The Rhythm Section (2020)
A giant syringe full of a deadly snake venom is used as a murder weapon. It's not exactly a snake used as a weapon, but the weapon is made from venom produced by snakes.
- The Scorpion King (2002)
Evil conqueror Memnon tells his henchmen to hide four venomous snakes inside six urns then forces his sorceress to choose the empty urns by putting her hands in them to prove she still has her psychic powers or die by snakebite. She fools him and uses one of the snakes to attack him. Later he knocks over the urns to let the snakes get out to attack his sword fighting opponent.
- The Speckled Band (1931)
Sherlock Holmes solves a mystery that involves a venomous snake that is dropped onto a woman in bed to kill her.
- The Tall Texan (1953)
A man shoots a rattlesnake then picks it up and uses its carcass to whip another man.
- The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
The Mongol Prince has a staff with an orb that has a snake inside it that can poke its head out and bite someone. He uses it to kill a man in order to demonstrate how a magic golden apple can bring a dead man back to life.
- The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960)
Hyde kills his rival by locking him in a room with a snake.
- Thomasine & Bushrod (1974)
A U.S. Marshall tortures an outlaw by hanging him over a snake pit full of rattlesnakes. When he refuses to talk, he cuts the rope to drop him into the pit.
- Virgin Sacrifice (1960)
- We're No Angels (1955)
In this "Christmas Comedy" starring Humphrey Bogart, three escaped convicts bring Adolph, a pet "deadly poisonous snake" in a wicker box intending to use it to kill tyrannical Cousin Andre. After Bogart decides against the plan Andre comes in and finds the box. He takes it, insisting on knowing what's inside it thinking they're trying to steal something from him, then he goes into a room to open it and slams the door. After a long comic delay as the three men slowly discuss which one of them should "rush in and warn him" Bogart finally goes in but comes out immediately. When asked why he didn't tell him, he says "He knows already." The snake is never actually seen in the film by us, but it is described as an Eastern Coral Snake.
- White Line Fever (1975)
Greedy corporate bosses try to kill an independent trucker by putting a rattlesnake in his truck.
- Wild Cactus (1993)
A man is kidnapped and stranded in the desert where he finds a rattlesnake and puts it in a bag. He makes his way back home where he finds the kidnapper and tells him that he can find something he wants in the bag. The kidnapper opens the bag and gets snakebit.
- Wind Across the Everglades (1958)
An outlaw named Cottonmouth keeps a venomous Cottonmouth snake in his pocket and throws it at people he wants to die "of natural causes."
- Women in Cages (1971)
A woman convict tries to kill her cellmate with a snake that crawled through their cell window.
- Yellowneck (1955)
A man holds a snake in the face of a man who is afraid of snakes in order to terrorize him.
- Mojin: The Worm Valley (2018)
A giant monster snake guards the tomb of an ancient Emperor that holds the solution to an age old curse.
- Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)
In a comic scene, a woman trying to avoid getting abducted by a man throws a basket at him, not knowing that it was full of snakes. She quickly decides to use them as weapons, commanding them to attack. They ignore her command, and the bad guy knows they're harmless anyway.
- Crocodile Dundee II (1988)
As part of his tactics to terrorize a group of gangsters who are hunting Dundee and his girlfriend, Dundee sneaks into their camp at night and throws a bag holding a large harmless python at the sentry, who was sleeping.
- The Day The Earth Froze (Sampo) 1959
A wicked witch has a snake pit into which she throws troublemakers.
- Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975)
Kulkan, the medicine man of the Quetzamals, a supposedly-extinct tribe that lives in a hidden valley in South America, kills people with "The Green Death" - deadly magic green snakes that can crawl through the air to strike at their victims, killing them quickly. The magic snakes are made by using the venom of live green snakes.
- Jungle Cruise (2021)
An ancient Spanish explorer is bitten by a venomous snake and then he is cursed to be made out of snakes. He sends his snake parts to attack and kill people.
- Once Upon a Time in America (Extended Director's Cut) (1984)
In the extended director's cut we see a woman acting as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Cleopatra committing suicide by snakebite.
- The Snake Girl (1974)
An evil woman throws her adopted sister into a snake pit to die but she mates with a snake and gives birth to Snake Girl.
132. King Serpent Island (She wang dao) (2022)
A henchman for a black market snake hunting gang working for sleazy real estate developers blocks the door then puts several venomous snakes inside a cabin to kill its occupants.
133. The Tender Warrior (1971)
A man in a Georgia swamp digs a large pit, puts a rattlesnake in it, then covers it with vegetation to trap a young boy who is trying to prevent him from trapping more animals. The boy falls into the snake pit, but he climbs out unharmed with the help of his pet Chimpanzee.
134. The Witches of Eastwick (1987)
A Devilish man with magic powers videotapes three women he's involved with, asking them what they see when they open their eyes. One woman, Alexandra, tells him she sees snakes crawling all over her and she disappears. Later, after the women reject him, he watches the tape and uses the women's answers to harm them. He fills Alexandra's bed with snakes, which terrifies her.
135. The House on Skull Mountain (1974)
A voodoo priest uses snakes to scare a victim to death.
136. The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
A man puts on thick gloves and takes a venomous snake out of a briefcase. He sneaks up to another man, holds the snake's head to his neck, and the snake bites him, killing him.
137. The Inhuman Woman (1924)
A jealous man puts a venomous snake in a flower arrangement to kill a woman who rejected him.
138. The Devil's Rain (1975)
A man wears a magic amulet around his neck to protect him from a Satanic priest, but the priest uses magic to make him believe that the amulet is a snake. The man freaks out and throws the snake to the ground, where we see that it is really the amulet, and the man is no longer protected.
139. The Devonsville Terror (1983)
Someone put a snake in the bed of a woman suspected of being a witch to kill her or torment her.
140. To the Devil a Daughter (1976)
A Satanist with magic powers calls a man on the telephone, then wraps a rope around the phone to make the man believe there is a deadly snake wrapped around his hand to force him to give up some information or die. After he gives up the information, the snake disappears.
141. Dick Barton Strikes Back (1949)
A bad guy thinks he's clever locking two men in a room full of venomous snakes in glass cages, then shooting the glass from outside the room to let the snakes escape to kill the men. But he doesn't feel so clever after the men escape and toss him into the room with the snakes.