10 Horror Movie Characters You Thought Were Dead For Sure
9. Marty Mikalski - The Cabin In The Woods
The Cabin in the Woods is a playfully subversive horror-comedy which thoroughly toys with the genre's reliance on certain tropes - and also our expectations of them.
Case in point, stoner Marty Mikalski (Fran Kranz) is clearly positioned as the comic relief goofball who, inevitably, will probably get killed off mid-way through the movie.
And that certainly seems to be the case, when Marty is stabbed through the back by a member of the undead Buckner family and then dragged off into the distance.
We see a large spurt of blood while Marty screams, and one of the controllers overseeing the scenario even pulls a lever, seemingly confirming his sacrificial demise.
But about 15 minutes later, Marty inexplicably returns from the dead to rescue protagonist Dana (Kristen Connolly) from Father Buckner, with Marty having somehow managed to overpower and kill his zombified assailant earlier on.
Considering that Marty is the best character in the movie, it made for quite the fist-pumping moment while also being a genuine surprise.