10 Horror Movie Characters Who Were SECONDS Away From Dying
When survival is balanced on a knife-edge, you can rely on this lot to pull through.
The horror movie character is an unpredictable beast. While many leads, supports and villains are seemingly doomed from the opening crawl, they often defy our expectations and come back with a vengeance, or at least make it to the end without croaking.
Take, for example, the improbable survivor, the last-minute resurrection, the victim who got away – these are some of the finest character-based tropes, as they take what we think we know and turn it inside out.
But not all near-misses with death are created equal. Some are the sloppy knifework of a ghostface killer, others are born of a reluctant hero, while a lucky few are the blessings of a deus ex machina (or heavy-handed producer) who steps in to save a fan favourite when their time is surely up.
Whether we find them in major Hollywood blockbusters or foreign cult classics, hiding in the dark streets of Haddonfield or floating in outer space, here are 10 characters who were mere seconds away from crashing those pearly gates.
But beware: If you haven't yet set your eyes upon Halloween Kills or Army Of The Dead, spoilers await.
10. Paul - Misery (1990)
A sucker for punishment, successful romance novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) has a rough ride in the Stephen King adaptation Misery; it's kind of in the name.
Paul crashes his car during a blizzard, before being rescued from the wreckage by the solitary local nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates). A big fan of Paul's novels, Annie nurses him, feeds him and forces him, under pain of torture, to write a new novel for her.
Things progressively go from bad to worse as Annie becomes more neurotic, controlling and cruel. And, while the unlucky author has a number of close shaves with death throughout the film, from the initial car crash through to the final fight with his captor, there is one moment in particular that is a cut above the rest.
In a particularly melancholic moment, following her slaying of the local sheriff, Annie decides it is time for her and Paul to check out, advancing on him with a syringe and a gun. But Paul stops her in her tracks with a well-timed 'I love you, too'. Bluffing his way out of imminent doom, Paul convinces Annie that, if she lets him live a little longer, he can complete the new novel and 'give it back to the world' before they leave it together – buying him time to plot his escape and her demise.
Ahh, romance.