Basic Trope: A killer continues beating on the corpse after it’s dead.
- Straight: Alice kills Bob through a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, and keeps it up even after he’s passed away.
- Exaggerated: Alice systematically beats Bob into a blood smear, limb by limb.
- Downplayed: After Bob goes down; Alice hits him a few extra time before realising it.
- Justified:
- Bob’s so tough that Alice doesn’t believe he's dead even when she can’t get a pulse.
- Alice is half-mad and half-blind, so she doesn’t realise Bob’s dead.
- Alice doesn't care, it's just that cathartic.
- Bob killed Alice's friend and then himself, and Alice wants to make up for her denied revenge.
- Inverted: Alice patches Bob’s corpse up, not wanting to believe he’s dead.
- Subverted:
- It turns out even after that, Bob is Not Quite Dead.
- Alice is about to attack the corpse when she suddenly stops, realises Bob’s dead, and then leaves his body alone.
- Double Subverted:
- So Alice makes sure to finish the job next time. Messily.
- Then Alice comes back with the meat tenderiser…
- Parodied:
- Alice turns Bob into a horse before killing and beating him. Guess why?
- Carol tells Alice to stop beating the corpse…Because she wants a turn.
- Alice pummels Bob's corpse for a truly absurd amount of time, hours if not days.
- Zig Zagged: Alice beats on Bob’s corpse, but in her culture it’s actually Due to the Dead, and is a sign of respect.
- Averted: Nor corpses were harmed in the making of the movie.
- Enforced: The game’s designer deliberate let you do this, as Beating A Dead Player is fun.
- Lampshaded: “You’re not allowed to die! I haven’t finished beating on you yet!”
- Invoked:
- Alice has killed Bob in a fit of rage, but she’s still mad and so beats on his body in an attempt to vent further.
- Alice beats on Bob corpse to prevent him from entering the afterlife, at least according to her own customs.
- Exploited: It’s used as critical evidence in the court case that Bob was beaten after his death.
- Defied:
- Alice keeps a close eye on Bob’s pulse as he “fights,” and stops the moment he’s dead.
- Carol whips out a shotgun and vaporizes Bob’s head with a blast after Alice takes him out. "There. He's dead. He's very, very dead. No need to tire yourself."
- Discussed: “She’s gonna kill and then torture him. In that order.”
- Conversed: “I’m getting hints that Alice didn’t like Bob much on this show.”
Hey, want to keep Pummeling the Corpse?
