History Main / WeaponizedCameras

So there's a fight scene, and someone just happens to have a camera. Not only is the camera useful for snapping photographs, its one more possible weapon out of many already present in the scene. If the camera isn't being used to physically bonk people over the head, the flash can be used to momentary blind them. In some rare cases, the effectiveness of the camera as a weapon has to do with superstition on the part of the person whose picture gets taken ("You stole my soul!")

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!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The protagonist of ''Anime/SpeedGrapher'' can kill with his camera, which blows up whatever he photographs.
* The female character in ''Manga/ZombiePowder'' turned her tripod into a cannon.
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[[folder:Film]]
* In the film ''Film/DogSoldiers'' they use a polaroid camera to blind the attacking monsters. The photographs they take show up in the end credits.
* The climactic scene in ''Film/RearWindow''.
* ''Film/{{Quarantine}}'' includes a scene where a character uses the POV camera to beat up a zombie lens-first.
* Done in ''Film/{{Gremlins}}'' by one of the characters who knew the Gremlins were sensitive to light.
* In ''Film/DrNo'', photographer Annabelle Chung cuts Quarrel's face with a broken flashbulb. It doesn't do her much good.
* The Camerahead Cenobite from ''Film/HellraiserIIIHellOnEarth'' can make things explode by taking a picture of them with his camera eye, which can also extend with enough force to punch a hole through a man's head.
* A camera-mounted tripod is used as a stabbing and bludgeoning weapon in ''Film/HalloweenResurrection''.
* An alternate ending for ''Film/ParanormalActivity'' would have had a possessed Katie beat Micah to death with the camera.
* The Water Street Butcher bashes a child's head in with the camera in ''Film/ThePoughkeepsieTapes''.
* When her home is plunged into darkness, Sarah from ''Film/{{Inside}}'' uses the flashes emitted by her camera to navigate the house, and find the wounded killer.
* The killer in ''Film/TheSleeper'' blinds two co-eds with camera flashes before attacking them.
* The terrorists in ''Film/DeathTrain'' demand a camera crew be let onto the train so they can show off the bomb and make their point clear to the world. This is done - but the heroes are in the news crew, and the camera has a single-shot gun hidden inside.
* In the horror film ''Film/DontBeAfraidOfTheDark'' in 2011, Sally was given a Polaroid SX70 OneStep camera by Kim. During the dinner party hosted by her father, she went to photograph proof of the Fairy Fold monsters. However, she becomes locked up in the library and has to keep the Fairy Fold away from her with the flashes until her father finds a way in.
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[[folder:Literature]]
* Sometimes, the camera really ''does'' steal souls. See (repeatedly) ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}''.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''
** In ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'', Bel-Shammaroth is stunned and scared off by caged Salamanders flashing lights. Salamanders whose purpose is to provide light for Twoflower's camera.
** In ''Discworld/TheTruth'', Otto Chriek's experimental camera is used to advantage in a fight scene because it uses Uberwaldean Land Eels -- which emit the mysterious "dark light" -- instead of Salamanders.
* The ''only'' way to defeat the BigBad in the book ''Golden And Grey: The Nightmares Ghosts Have'', was to capture his image in some way. The hero intended to use a pocket mirror and brought one along, but when it broke, an annoying reporter with a camera ended up saving the day.
* In Creator/MichaelCrichton's ''Literature/{{Prey}}'', the killer GreyGoo were originally designed to be nanomolecular cameras.
* In Charles Stross' ''Literature/TheLaundrySeries'', the CCTV cameras ubiquitous across England can be turned into "look-to-kill" weapons, operating on the same principle as [[TakenForGranite basilisks, gorgons, etc]]. It says something about how bad [[ApocalypseHow a full-scale invasion]] by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s is expected to be that killing (by petrifying and/or cooking) most of Britain's population is considered ''[[GodzillaThreshold the better option]].''
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[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/KolchakTheNightStalker''
** "Bad Medicine". When Kolchak takes pictures of a diablero, it flees to protect its eyes from the bright light from the camera's flashbulb.
** Subverted in "They Have Been, They Are, They Will Be...". Kolchak thinks the monster is adversely affected by the light from his camera's flash bulb. It actually turns out to be vulnerable to the sound the camera's recharger makes after the flash.
* One of the ''Series/{{CSI}}s'' had a girl die when a camera was thrown at her.
* Mentioned in an episode of ''Series/HogansHeroes''. There was a Hollywood star who had joined the US Army Air Corps and had been shot down, and had agreed (for some bizarre reason) to take part in a German propaganda film. Carter's idea to keep "America's Sweetheart" from doing a propaganda film for the Nazis?
-->'''Carter''': I pretend I'm taking a picture, but inside the camera, I've got a [[{{BFG}} thirty-seven millimeter cannon]]...sawed off.
-->'''Newkirk''': You don't think that's a bit messy?
* The "KGB vs. CIA" episode of ''Series/DeadliestWarrior'' featured the KGB using a camera that was also a gun. It was intended for assassinations, which was why it only held [[OneBulletLeft a single .22 caliber bullet.]]
* ''Series/BurnNotice'': Michael Westen once cracked open a disposable camera and put the case around a taser.
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[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In the ''{{Champions}}'' adventure ''C.L.O.W.N.'' Snapshot, one of the members of the title villain group, had a high tech camera that could change its target into a photograph.
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[[folder:Videogames]]
* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'', a camera can be used to blind foes.
* ''FatalFrame'', in which a camera can be used to exorcise ghosts by taking their picture with a Camera Obscura using special film.
* The small, flying camera robots in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' often end up blinding you.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' one of Edgar's tools is a camera with a damaging flash.
* In ''EternalDarkness'' there's a level where you play as a journalist in a makeshift World War I hospital. You start the level with a camera and some flash powder which you can use to stun enemies (which is useful, considering some of them can easily dodge the puny guns you're given).
* While Jade cannot actually fight using her camera in ''VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil'', it does serve as a substitute for a SniperRifle scope for making precise long-distance shots with the disk launcher.
* Ran Hibiki from the ''VideoGame/RivalSchools'' games incorporates her camera into some of her special attacks, being a SchoolNewspaperNewshound and all.
* In the movie studio stage of the ''VideoGame/ScottPilgrim'' game, one of the generic {{mooks}} attacks with a flash camera.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' {{Gaiden Game}}s ''Shoot the Bullet'' and ''Double Spoiler'', taking enough pictures of the bosses makes them explode as though they were defeated. Taking pictures also clears away [[BulletHell bullets]] in the picture.
* There's at least one ''TinTin'' videogame adaptation where you can use the camera to scare away birds/bats and stun both men and beasts alike, allowing you to get close enough to knock them out cold.
* Although it works ''slightly'' different in both games, [[VideoGame/DeadRising Frank West]] uses a camera as one of his special moves in both ''VideoGame/TatsunokoVsCapcom'' and ''Ultimate VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3''.
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[[folder:Webcomics]]
* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', Catalina and Rhoda use their cameras' flashes along with a loud whistle to scare off a boar.
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[[folder:Western Animation]]
* When ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' went to Itchy & Scratchy Land and the robots went berserk, flashes from cameras were both their BerserkButton "on" switch and "off" switch.
* It took Buzz and his gang a camera set in the baggage conveyor belt scene to temporarily paralyze ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'''s villain, [[{{Prospector}} Stinky Pete]]. [[BlindedByTheLight With the flash]], of course.
* In one ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' episode Eddy keeps doing this to Kevin.
* JohnnyTest used this to defeat the Molemen in one episode.
* During a ''Film/JamesBond'' {{parody}} episode of ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' a mook at the photography company's secret lair uses a camera to shoot shuriken-photos at Dexter.
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[[folder:Truth In Television]]
* More reasonable than you may think. Older film cameras are liable because they tended to be made out of milled metals and other durable materials with a simple internal construction, while modern high-end cameras tend to have heavy-duty magnesium frames and are designed specifically so that you can drop them on rocks in the middle of an African safari and still expect them to work well enough. As for flashes, well, a professional off-camera flash is something you don't want going off in your face rapidly in the first place, and many modern flashes have enough capacitors to build several flashes' worth of charge per cycle. Plus, many photographers are liable to have [[DualWielding two or more flashes on them if they have their kit]]. Basically, don't put a photographer in a corner, it could be painful.
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* In the horror film ''Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark'' in 2011, Sally was given a Polaroid SX70 OneStep camera by Kim. During the dinner party hosted by her father, she went to photograph proof of the Fairy Fold monsters. However, she becomes locked up in the library and has to keep the Fairy Fold away from her with the flashes until her father finds a way in.

* In the horror film ''Film/Don'tbeAfraidoftheDark'' in 2011, Sally was given a Polaroid SX70 OneStep camera by Kim. During the dinner party hosted by her father, she went to photograph proof of the Fairy Fold monsters. However, she becomes locked up in the library and has to keep the Fairy Fold away from her with the flashes until her father finds a way in.