10 Horror Movie Characters Who Were SECONDS Away From Dying

In case you've slept through mainstream horror for the past couple of decades, the Saw series is about morally compromised individuals being tested in a series of gruesome and deadly games designed to test their worth.

Initially introduced as one of the franchise's many police detectives in Saw III (2006), corrupt Detective Lieutenant Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) rose to prominence in the film's sequels, going rogue as a Jigsaw accomplice, then again as something of a free radical aligned with no-one but himself.

But this constant and, quite frankly, exhausting double-crossing almost scuppered him in Saw VI (2009). Captured by Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), Jigsaw's wife, Hoffman is locked into a reverse bear trap, one of the series' most enduring murder devices. Precisely as Jigsaw – who didn't trust Hoffman as far as he could throw him – wanted it to be.

Unfortunately for all, Detective Hoffman knows how to play the game and makes it out of the trap literally a few seconds before it springs open, his right cheek torn apart, but otherwise no worse for wear. This knack for survival only makes it all the more satisfying when he is left to die by original victim Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) in the franchise's faux-finale Saw: The Final Chapter.