Sandbox / Saw: Mark Hoffman

Saw Main Character Index
Jigsaw and Accomplices (John Kramer, Mark Hoffman) | Other Antagonists | Law Enforcement (Metropolitan Police Department) | Other Characters (I-III, IV-VI, 3D-X)

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Detective Lieutenant Mark Hoffman

"Right now, you're feeling helpless."

Portrayed By: Costas Mandylor

Appearances: Saw III | Saw IV | Saw V | Saw VI | Saw 3D | Saw X

"You told me the only way to help people reach true enlightenment was to detach emotionally."

— Hoffman to John in Saw V

Jigsaw's second canonical apprentice and the third full-term Jigsaw Killer (after Amanda Young). Mark Hoffman started out as a detective of the Metropolitan Police Department's Homicide Division simply assigned to the Jigsaw case. At some point before that, his sister Angelina Acomb, whom he himself states to have been his only family, was murdered by her abusive boyfriend Seth Baxter; even though Seth ended up receiving a life prison sentence, Hoffman had a depressive breakdown that lasted for an unknown time upon first seeing Angelina's dead corpse.

He was also a colleague of Matt Gibson. Not much of their past relationship is known aside from Hoffman once saving Gibson from being shot by a homeless man. Because Hoffman killed the criminal despite willingly raising his hands to him, Gibson tried to report this incident to the department's leadership, which only led to Hoffman getting a promotion and Gibson being moved to the department's Internal Affairs division, leaving the latter with a bitter taste on Hoffman.

By the time of the Jigsaw investigation, Hoffman used the knowledge he acquired of Jigsaw by virtue of following the case to murder Seth using Jigsaw's MO, after the latter was freed from his imprisonment on a technicality. This frame job made it to the news and caught John Kramer's attention, who blackmails Hoffman into helping him. Not long afterwards, Hoffman became John's first full-tenured apprentice (after the latter's initial attempt with Logan Nelson), doing a good bulk of jobs before Amanda (whom he constantly competed against for John's praise) came in.

Eventually, Hoffman began to fall in love with his carnage and, like Amanda, didn't completely buy into Jigsaw's philosophy. After overthrowing John by deliberately causing his and Amanda's deaths in Saw III (the surrounding incident of which led to Hoffman being promoted to Detective Lieutenant in Saw V), Hoffman continued the Jigsaw work until Saw 3D, doing his best to avoid being exposed to the Metropolitan Police Department and the FBI (who were also involved in the case) and facing numerous people threatening his identity, the most active of which was John's ex-wife Jill Tuck, who was acting at a posthumous request from John. In the middle of a subsequent investigation for a "second accomplice" after the games set by him began to pop up, his true identity as Jigsaw's successor was first discovered by the FBI in Saw VI, but (due to him immediately destroying their found evidence and killing the investigators in response) was only revealed to the Metropolitan Police Department at large by Jill in Saw 3D, at which he decided to try and leave the city via airplane in order to get away unscathed, while fending off the prosecution on him led by Gibson.

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A-J

• And I Must Scream: His ultimate fate in 3D. Dr. Gordon drags him to the bathroom from the first film, chains him up, and disposes of the hacksaw, his only means of escape, before locking Hoffman inside and leaving him to die a slow and painful death from either dehydration or starvation.
• Arch-Enemy: He's had three of them so far.
  • Strahm, who was the first law enforcement officer to figure that he's a Jigsaw apprentice. While their fight lasts for little more than one film, with Hoffman being the winner by getting Strahm killed and framed for a while, Strahm's partner Perez and their superior Erickson eventually become suspicious of Hoffman too, and pursue him during the investigation of Strahm's death and the reopening of the case regarding Hoffman's first victim.
  • Jill, the most active person in trying to stop him, at John's posthumous request to her. While he had met her a few times initially, Hoffman wasn't aware what she was seeking against him until she attempts to get him killed with the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 in the climax of Saw VI, at which he becomes hellbent on murdering her in vengeance, especially after she exposes him as Jigsaw's successor to the Metropolitan Police Department at the beginning of Saw 3D.
  • Gibson has a personal disdain for him because of how he got away with deliberately killing an armed criminal who willingly raised his hands at him (even if he did it to defend Gibson) back when the two officers were colleagues in the Homicide Division. When Gibson tried to report Hoffman for breaking police protocol, the Metropolitan Police Department's leadership gave Hoffman a promotion while transferring Gibson to Internal Affairs. Once he's exposed as the new Jigsaw in Saw 3D and the Internal Affairs Division takes over the investigation, Gibson becomes relentlessly determined to detain Hoffman as the new lead detective in the case, regardless of the chaos and internal discord that may ensue.
• Arc Words: "Right now, you're feeling helpless." While not a Catchphrase of his, as he says it only once in the Pendulum Trap's tape, but it's particularly emphasized between Saw V and VI as Hoffman descends further and further into villainy; in the latter, it plays on a progressively ominous-sounding Broken Record basis during a voice recognition process at the FBI's tech lab during the climax, setting the tone for Hoffman's brutal Curb-Stomp Battle and subsequent slaughter of the agents once he's discovered.
• Ascended Extra: He first appeared briefly as a crime scene technician at the scene of Troy's trap in Saw III, being even credited as "Forensic Hoffman". Likely because every other Jigsaw killer and major cop at the time (besides Rigg and Eric) was killed off in the previous installments, Hoffman is suddenly a seasoned detective and Jigsaw apprentice from Saw IV onwards, and becomes the new Big Bad up to Saw 3D.
• Asshole Victim: No tears were shed when Lawrence left him in an inescapable scenario to die of starvation or dehydration.
• At Least I Admit It: Hoffman admits to enjoying seeing people suffer in their traps when he feels they deserve to be in them for what they've done, and in a flashback in Saw VI set shortly before the events of III, he bitterly snaps at John (who forced Hoffman to join him in his work) to stop pretending that he doesn't.
  John: (after seeing Hoffman uncaringly throw an unconscious Timothy out of a wheelbarrow) That's a human being. Do you like how brutality feels, Mark?
  Hoffman: Let's be honest. You want him to suffer just as much as I do.
• Ax-Crazy: In 3D. With his identity as a Serial Killer known to the public, he sees no reason not to become a raging psychopath, killing anyone who is in his way for the remainder of the film as sadistically as he can.
• Bastard Understudy: He took part in the Jigsaw philosophy when John was alive, having been forced into it under threat of death if he didn't comply, and predictably enough, didn't particularly care about changing people once John was no longer there to nip at his heels about it to make sure that he went along with it. After John dies, Hoffman continues the Jigsaw murders by his own standards whenever possible, only going by John's philosophy when he is carrying out plans that John already set in motion. He doesn't seem to rig his traps like Amanda had previously, but they tend to be far more difficult and far more brutal, primarily focused on eliminating people that violate his own code of ethics, and require much more luck on the subject's part to escape.
• Batman Gambit: A small part of Hoffman's plan to catch Jill in Saw 3D is a pretty extreme case of this, as it requires the explosion he sets off in the scrapyard to distract every single officer present for several minutes while he opens up a bodybag, removes the body from it, moves it two rooms over, poses it and then crawls back into the bodybag, all without anyone noticing.
• Beard of Evil: As a result of Jill disfiguring his face and the stress of being on the run from the entire city, Hoffman becomes disheveled by 3D and gains a notable five-o-clock shadow.
• Beneath Suspicion: Saw IV sets up a twist ending for Hoffman that's very similar to the example from the first film, down to having a fake suspect for the audience to assume as an apprentice. Just like Lawrence and Adam, Eric and Hoffman are trapped in a small room at the Gideon Meatpacking Plant with Art having them on hold while overseeing Rigg's game. Similarly to Adam with Zep, Rigg finds out that Art had an instruction tape with him, and Hoffman unties himself from his chair, matching John getting up in the first film.
• Big Bad: After John's death in Saw III, he became the Big Bad from Saw IV to 3D (totaling to four films, which was one more than the films where John had the role within the first seven movies before Saw X balanced the number with John regaining the role). However, it took a couple of films to solidify Hoffman as an actual threat, with Saw VI being commonly accepted as when he fully Took a Level in Badass.
• Big "NO!": His last words, at least on screen. He had a few days at most before he'd actually die of dehydration at the Bathroom.
• Birds of a Feather: Both Hoffman and John were ostensibly average joes until the death of a loved one changed them for the worse. Like John, Hoffman's first victim was the man responsible for said loved one's death.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Outwardly presents himself as a hard-working and caring cop, while hiding what a cold, manipulative, murderous, apathetic, asshole bastard he truly is as one of the Jigsaw Killers.
• Blue Is Heroic: Inverted. When out in the testing field, he wears a dark blue parka. One of his uniforms as a detective is also of different blue tones, with some others also having at least one blue-colored garment.
• Bodybag Trick: In Saw 3D, he hides inside a body bag (which was previously used to store Dan's corpse) so he can sneak into the police station where Jill is inside and catch her.
• Bond One-Liner: He turns the series' Signature Line "Game over" into one following the Reverse Bear Trap finally claiming a victim in Jill at the end of Saw 3D.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Averted in Saw 3D. Once he gets Jill into the Reverse Bear Trap, Hoffman stands there and watches until she dies, which she notably didn't do when she put him in the same situation in the previous movie.
• The Cameo: As confirmation of his much-teased return to the franchise since Saw 3D until then, Hoffman makes an appearance in The Stinger of Saw X, wherein he sets up Henry's trap (though it's also implied that he was the one who kidnapped Cecilia earlier in the film).
• Chekhov's Gunman: Much like Amanda between the first two movies, he first appeared in a small scene in Saw III, and was revealed to be another Jigsaw apprentice in the next movie, taking up the Jigsaw Killer reign after the deaths of John and Amanda.
• Co-Dragons: With Amanda before her death, though she didn't like his presence. The feeling seems to be very much mutual.
  Amanda: So when's your test, detective?
  Hoffman: I don't need one.
  Amanda: Oh, yeah?
  Hoffman: Yeah. (exposes a scarred cut on Amanda's wrist) Because I didn't take my life for granted.
  Amanda: You're still drawing your knuckles on the ground. What do you know about life? Get used to me, 'cause I'm not going anywhere.
  Hoffman: You're sure about that? [turns to John] Amanda will fail you.
  John: We'll see...
• Combat Pragmatist: During the voice interrogation scene in Saw VI whilst his tape is being decoded by Sachi under the supervision of Agents Erickson and Perez, Hoffman, visibly on edge, walks around the room, observing his surroundings as the other agents pay attention to Sachi's progress. After the tape is fully decoded to reveal him as a Jigsaw apprentice all along, Hoffman quickly uses the environment to his advantage, swiftly slitting Erickson's throat to cause chaos, throwing a hot coffee onto Perez's face before she can fire upon him, cutting the power to the outpost to turn out the lights and lessen his visibility, and using Sachi as a Human Shield by the time Perez recovers to use a pistol. Upon disposing of Sachi's corpse and taking advantage of Perez running out of ammo, Hoffman quickly lunges onto her, stabbing Perez viciously several times before she can shoot him.
• Cop Killer: He's a cop who has murdered many other cops, as well as several FBI agents, due to his actions as a Jigsaw killer. Come Saw VI and 3D, he decides to get all-personal when it comes to this, culminating in him going on a crazed massacre through an entire precinct to get to Jill at the latter film's climax.
• Cradle of Loneliness: The flashbacks to Angelina's death briefly show Hoffman cradling the hand of her corpse, and no one willing to pull him away.
• Crazy-Prepared: Not as much as John, as he relies more on acting than preparation, but he carries at least a hidden weapon in just about any scenerio where things have the potential to go awry. It pays off in Saw VI when he's almost apprehended at the FBI's local technical lab, and is able to slit Erickson's throat and slaughter the rest before they can do anything to stop him.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Downplayed. Whenever he's talking to others onscreen, he tends to come off as not the brightest bulb among the Jigsaw killers and investigators alike (whether he's using Obfuscating Stupidity or not is up to the viewer). However, he has an honored reputation within the Metropolitan Police Department for being a very successful officer, and he manages to accomplish numerous tasks nobody else was able to do throughout the movies. These include:
  • Implicitly eliminating both Jigsaw and Amanda just though careful planning and knowledge of their behavior.
  • Killing two FBI agents integral to the case with nothing more than a hidden knife, a cup of hot coffee and another employee as a Human Shield.
  • Escaping an improved version of the Reverse Bear Trap that was rigged by Jill to execute him, with only a broken hand and a wound on his cheek from a device designed to literally rip his head completely open.
  • The culminating point might be him slaughtering an entire police precinct in the span of minutes, simply to get revenge on Jill for her attempt on his life.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: He is locked inside the Bathroom by Dr. Gordon at the end of Saw 3D, and is left to die a slow death from dehydration or starvation. Downplayed however, since it's still debatable whether or not he really died.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: He gets Strahm killed and attempts to posthumously frame him as being Jigsaw's successor. It doesn't work.
• Deceptive Disciple: Basically extorted into becoming an underling of Jigsaw, he wasn't interested in John's philosophy and tried to undermine his relationship with Amanda. Eventually, when John and Amanda die, he turns the Jigsaw name into his own joyride, killing either just because, to simply continue the games as he was ordered, to keep his double life secret, or to exact personal revenge on people whom he believes have wronged him.
• Decoy Damsel: In Saw IV, as Rigg is first instructed, Hoffman is apparently captured alongside Eric in a trap by Art that will kill both of them in quick succession if he doesn't come in a given time. While said thing does happen due to Rigg not getting that he had to wait during said time before being able to enter the room Eric and Hoffman were trapped in without problem, Hoffman takes off his restraints, with an accompanying flashback showing that he was the one who abducted Rigg in the first place.
• Destroy the Evidence:
  • In Saw VI, he burns down the FBI's technical lab to destroy the newfound evidence exposing his identity as the new Jigsaw, including the corpses of the agents and audio tech he killed after they got the evidence in front of him.
  • While he's already known as Jigsaw at the time of Saw 3D, he still destroys his lair full of his Jigsaw stuff using the same method as he makes his attempt at escaping the city, this time with explosive results.
• Detective Mole: He's implied to have had the major role of finding crimes for victims during the time John was alive, and a flashback from Saw V shows that he was the one who warned John about Tapp.
• Determinator:
  • In Saw VI, Jill knocks out Hoffman and straps an updated Reverse Bear Trap on him with no means of escape, as she had also strapped him to a chair before activating it. In desperation, Hoffman breaks his own hand to get it out of a strap to unstrap his other hand, then smashes the Reverse Bear Trap between bars to delay it from opening all the way in order to get it off. He manages to hack it, but still gets his right cheek ripped open.
  • In Saw 3D, despite being the most wanted criminal in the city, he decimates an entire police department and SWAT team simultaneously to get revenge on Jill. Even after Lawrence traps him in the end, Hoffman rushes for a hacksaw in reach to either attack Lawrence or immediately saw off his foot to escape his predicament.
• Didn't Think This Through: Being both a police officer and a Jigsaw Killer (which brings some inevitable medical knowledge he picked up along the way), Hoffman could have realized in his attempted Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit with Strahm's mutilated hand that a dead hand leaves different traces compared to a live one, and that any other possible track of the "second accomplice" would have been studied very carefully. At no point does he appear to acknowledge or care about this, even after his gambit fails.
• Dirty Cop: Besides becoming one of Jigsaw's apprentices and eventually succeeding him, Hoffman uses his knowledge of the legal system and due process to keep other cops off of his trail. Because of the latter, he was seen as a By-the-Book Cop by most of the department before he was exposed as Jigsaw's successor; in Gibson's flashbacks from Saw 3D, the department's leadership saw nothing wrong with him when Gibson reported him to them for killing a criminal who willingly raised his hands to him, and in a written message from Tapp in Saw II: Flesh & Blood, he mentions that he'd want to keep Hoffman out of his police activities, out of worry that Hoffman might not approve of his Cowboy Cop tendencies.
• Dirty Coward: Played with. As Seth gets chopped in half by his Pendulum Trap, Hoffman can't even look at Seth's gruesome death. He's then brought into Jigsaw's fold without going through a real game, and brazenly claims to Amanda he doesn't need one because he appreciates his life. When he is finally tested, however, he defeats his test without any real means to escape!
• Dragon Ascendant: After John and Amanda's deaths, he continues the Jigsaw killings.
• Dragon with an Agenda: He never really subscribed to John's twisted philosophy. A test of character he has with Simone, a furious maimed survivor, has him further doubt it amounted to anything positive.
• Drowning My Sorrows: One of the flashbacks in Saw V features him drinking alcoholic drinks at a bar to emphasize his depression at the moment, a detail commented by John at the same time on voice-over. It's implied in flashbacks taking place at similar points in Saw 3D that this ended up boiling into alcoholism, hence Hoffman's unusual open violence towards criminals while on his police job.
  John: You sit in bars until closing, you drink so you can sleep, you stagger to your car so you can start it all over again the next day...
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: His first victim was a domestic abuser who murdered his sister.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He backed Rigg up after Rigg beat up a married domestic abuser about to get away with it, and assuming that he was the one who set up the trap said abuser is caught in during Saw IV's events, he makes sure his wife gets to effortlessly cause his death.
  • He seems disturbed, even emotional, when he sees Kerry's torn-apart corpse.
  • When Strahm is killed via The Walls Are Closing In, Hoffman looks away before the final impact, as if even he can't stand how horrific Strahm's death is. He does smile at the mutilated remains later, though.
    • Also, happy as he was of his Batman Gambit succeeding, Hoffman was playing fair, with his own life on the line. Unlike other examples (including Hoffman himself in IV) his survival wasn't guaranteed and wasn't even up to him.
  • He never talks about it, but he hates racist criminals. This is best shown with the targets he chooses on his own (that he isn't directed to target by John), the skinhead gang and his sister's murderous ex boyfriend, Seth (who has white supremacist tattoos). The Pendulum Trap was completely inescapable and The Horsepower Trap barely looks survivable at all, and Kara is tied up with barbed wire when chains would have been perfectly fine, as the rest of the skinheads had them as restraints that were just as effective.
• Evil All Along: After being set up as a major ally of Rigg throughout Saw IV, he's revealed to be another Jigsaw apprentice at the end.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: In The Stinger of Saw X, he rather cruelly tells Henry that he'd call his group's choice of scamming John "epic bad luck".
  "Out of all the men to cheat, you picked John Kramer? I mean... I'd call that... epic bad luck."
• Evil Sounds Deep: He speaks in a menacingly deep growl in comparison to John's soft-spoken tone.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: His default tone whenever he's not speaking with strong emotion is a raspy growl.
• Evil Wears Black: If he isn't wearing a blue-prominent outfit, he'll dress in a black suit most of the time, especially in scenes where he does something plot-relevant.
• False Friend: To Rigg. He defends Rigg from a brutality charge, and offers him some words of comfort when he expresses despair at Kerry's death. In truth, he's a Jigsaw apprentice, helped Amanda put Kerry in her trap, and coldly leaves Rigg to die after revealing his true colors at the end of Saw IV.
• Faux Affably Evil:
  • His entire affable demeanor is pretty fooling at first, that is, until you witnessed his true colors under the Jigsaw persona is when you realize that his affable side is pretty much just an act to lower suspicions.
  • How he acts towards Rigg is a shining example. He treats Rigg like a good friend, having protected him from assault charges and sympathizing with his horror at the sight of Kerry's dead corpse. Then, he tells Rigg to go home so he can kidnap him and put him through a trial, and coldly leaves him to die once he gets wounded in his sight.
  • He also politely informs Strahm and Perez where the coffee machines in the local police precinct are, and is very welcoming towards the latter as he meets her more often, before dooming Strahm in a trap and later torturing Perez by twisting a knife in her until she dies.
• Fiery Cover Up: His preferred method of destroying evidence leading to him, using the trope's standard gas canister and match, and often involving entire rooms.
  • In Saw VI, after killing and/or severely injuring everyone there, he burns down the FBI's technical lab with gasoline spilled on evidence, equipment and the people's corpses (including the still-living Erickson, whom he particularly gives a sadistic gaze at when he notices him writhing).
  • At the end of Saw 3D, he leaves the storage building he used as his lair for the movie with a flame leading to a bunch of inflammable equipment, resulting in a burning explosion shortly after his exit.
• First-Episode Twist: To a lesser extent than usual. Hoffman is revealed to be an apprentice at the end of Saw IV, and takes up the mantle of Big Bad from Saw V to Saw 3D (a film more than John had in the first seven films, making him the longest-tenured Big Bad overall), comprising a "saga" of sorts dedicated to him.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In Saw IV, when the water melting from the ice block Eric is standing upon reaches the electric chair that Hoffman is strapped to, a voltage sound is heard, but Hoffman isn't explicitly seen being electrocuted. For Saw IV being one of the goriest films in the series, it's strange that a more mundane death like electrocution would happen offscreen, and this is shortly before the Wham Shot with Hoffman standing out of the chair.
• Foreshadowing:
  • At one point in Saw IV, Hoffman can be seen carrying the teddy bear that Jeff's daughter Corbett was seen with in Saw III. Asides from being a subtle hint towards him being a Jigsaw apprentice and the Sequencing Deception between the two films, this also hints that he was going to eventually free Corbett, which doesn't happen until Saw V.
  • In the same film, in the last shot of Hoffman before he's first seen in the Ice Block Trap, an almost-obscure pig mask can be seen hanging on a wall in the dark background. This is the same mask he wore while subduing Rigg in the previous scene beforehand, subtly giving away the identity of Rigg's abductor. Hoffman being "kidnapped" is him making a call and the camera focusing to the Pig Mask in the back, which at a glance makes it look like someone wearing the mask is standing in the dark, and followed by a frightening zoom editing effect on the mask. The audience never sees someone grab or jump Hoffman.
  • The reveal in Saw VI that Hoffman was the one who wrote the letter Amanda read in Saw III was also foreshadowed well back into Saw IV, where Hoffman is already seen putting the letter inside the correspondent drawer in the same scene as the above example.
  • During the capture montage of Saw X, Amanda isn't explicitly shown as the Pig Mask on Cecilia's roof, possibly alluding to Hoffman's presence before his revealing appearance in The Stinger.
• Freudian Excuse: His sister, who was his only remaining family, was brutally murdered by her boyfriend, Seth Baxter, who got off on a technicality and served barely any time in prison for it. After this, Hoffman degraded into an antisocial, drunken mess, until he was given purpose by his decision to murder Seth in revenge via a mock Jigsaw game. John took notice of this and blackmailed Hoffman into becoming his accomplice, leading Hoffman's life down a further downward spiral.
• Genius Bruiser: Hoffman's both as smart as John and much stronger than him.
• Glasgow Grin: He receives half of one after narrowly escaping the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 in Saw VI and stitching the resulting torn right cheek at the beginning of Saw 3D. When he grabs Jill, the first thing he tells her is to take attention to his stitched cheek, asking how he looks.
• Gone Horribly Right: If John's philosophy was to get people to appreciate their lives and gain a new outlook, Hoffman can be said to be the ultimate culmination of his logic... for all the wrong reasons. His indomitable will to live makes him survive the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 (which Jill sabotaged to be inescapable) and go on to lose all pretenses of following John's philosophy, murdering anyone he fancies instead.
• Hero Killer: He kills or causes the deaths of several heroic characters, such as Strahm, Perez, and Erickson.
• Hired to Hunt Yourself: When the police and FBI begin looking for a wanted second Jigsaw apprentice, the crime scenes in which he's involved in the investigations of are traps and trials that he set up himself.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His efforts to frame Strahm as the wanted second apprentice end up backfiring on him when the FBI's DNA testing on the fingerprints that he had planted over evidence proves that Strahm was already dead at the time. While he manages to avoid getting exposed for this by slaughtering the techs that made this discovery, it serves as the first major step in his eventual downfall.
• Human Shield: He was quick to use Sachi as one the moment his identity as a Jigsaw apprentice was revealed in Saw VI, specifically as a barrier between himself and Perez as the latter instinctively fires her pistol while blinded by the lab's lack of lightning after Hoffman cut the power, inadverently killing Sachi. It doesn't take long before Hoffman throws Sachi's corpse away and immediately stabs Perez several times.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Courtesy of his actor (who naturally has them), he has pale blue eyes that emphasize his bigger ruthlessness compared to the other Jigsaw killers.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: If an opportunity presents itself, Hoffman won't hesitate to use any nearby sharp tool to attack someone by the throat. Most notably, he slashes Erickson's jugular vein when his identity is exposed in Saw VI, and he kickstarts his precinct massacre in 3D by stabbing Heffner's throat.
• Improvisational Ingenuity: Specializes in this. It's arguably the reason he lasts so long as an apprentice, despite having both outside forces and two of John's allies working against him for almost two entire movies.
• Jack the Ripoff: What originally drew attention from the real Jigsaw, who took offense that Hoffman would use his name and methods for revenge.
  John: Vengeance can change a person, make you into something you never thought you were capable of being. But unlike you, I've never killed anyone. I give people a chance.

K-Z

• Karma Houdini: Subverted. While the games he makes on his own almost always involve unsympathetic victims who have to do even more difficult tasks than those of John's, he runs the ones John had planned to exploit the Jigsaw legacy (which he took over after meddling Jeff's trial in Saw III by blackmailing Amanda, John's most favored apprentice at the time, into disappointing him), directly kills numerous police and FBI personnel, attempts to frame Peter Straham for his crimes, and even murders John's ex-wife Jill. The climax of Saw 3D makes it seem as if Hoffman was going to get way with all of his crimes at first, but in the end, John manages to outsmart Hoffman with the final posthumous task he gave to Gordon: lock Hoffman in the Bathroom from the first three films and leave him there to die.
• Karmic Death: Hoffman is left to die alone in an inescapable trap by the hands of Gordon for killing Jill in the ending of 3D.
• Kick the Dog: Did this multiple times, including:
  • Framing Strahm as the second Jigsaw apprentice the police and FBI were looking for in his place.
  • Replacing John's letter to Amanda with one of his own that threatened to reveal her secret.
  • Consecutively murdering lab technician Sachi, Erickson and Perez to maintain his cover.
  • Killing nearly 20 police personnel (directly or otherwise) as part of his scheme to catch and murder Jill.
• Killer Cop: Having remained his position of detective long since he became a Jigsaw Killer, this goes without saying. He has also murdered several people while on the police job, with the bonus point coming for most of them being fellow cops or investigators.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: After his sister was killed by her boyfriend and when the latter was let off on a technicality, Hoffman avenged Angelina's death by killing Seth in such a way that it would appear to be another Jigsaw game.
• Last-Name Basis: He's referred to as Hoffman by almost everyone, and very rarely do people use his first name. One notable time he was referred to as Mark was when John asked him if he likes how brutality feels in a flashback from Saw VI.
• Meaningful Appearance: Unlike other Jigsaw apprentices and certain relevant accomplices, Hoffman never wore a red and black robe similar to John's whenever on the testing field, instead wearing the dark blue parka he first had when abducting Seth. This represents that he had never believed in John's philosophy once, even when compared to other apprentices who defied it like Amanda.
• Mirror Character: To Logan Nelson, surprisingly enough.
  • Hoffman and Logan are presented as some of John's first attempts at recruiting apprentices to his cause, have a background in government-associated defense (Logan as a medical examiner and former member of the US military, and Hoffman as a police officer), and act as The Heavy during their respective tenures under John, being physically-imposing men with fairly decent strength and a knowledge of self-defense and weapons usage.
  • Both lost a female relative important to their life (Hoffman's sister Angelina, and Logan's wife Christine) to a killer who escaped justice for their death, and then manipulated the Jigsaw philosophy as a means of getting that justice achieved on their own terms. If the mention of a relapse in a Freeze-Frame Bonus on his military file is of any indication, and much like Hoffman's explicitly-shown case, Logan also seems to have coped with the trauma of that death by turning to drugs or alcohol, only managing to get out of that situation by turning to work as an apprentice of John as a new coping mechanism.
  • Both take advantage of their positions as people involved with law enforcement or crime scene work to manipulate evidence, turn attention away from themselves, and frame other people for their crimes outright.
  • Each of them has a role in causing John's eventual death. John's inability to get his cancer treated was caused by Logan inadvertently mixing up John's head x-ray with another patient's while he was working as an intern of the Angel of Mercy Hospital, while Hoffman deliberately manipulates the events at the Gideon Meatpacking Plant across Saw III and IV to get both John and Amanda killed, so he would no longer be stuck under John's thumb.
• Mistaken for Related: A single-receptor variant involving multiple relatives in Saw IV. In his last meeting at the police station with Strahm and Perez before the film's main game begins, Hoffman shows up carrying Corbett Denlon's teddy bear. Looking at the teddy bear, Perez assumes that Hoffman has a wife and a child, which he dismisses as being a "short story".
  Perez: I didn't know you were married.
  Hoffman: I'm not. It's a short story, believe me.
• Moe Greene Special: In Saw 3D, he kills Rogers by shooting him in the right eye.
• Monster Brother, Cutie Sister: Implied to be the monster brother to Angelina's cutie sister. Though Angelina's screentime is limited, the articles posted about her death imply she was the kinder of the two of them. Hoffman needs no explanation...
• Near-Villain Victory: Just before the end of Saw 3D, and in Hoffman's perspective, everyone who had opposed him was dead, and there was nobody left to stop him. It looks as if Hoffman had won in the end... until Dr. Gordon, Brad and Ryan show up to immobilize him, something that Hoffman never knew, let alone suspected would happen.
• Neck Snap: He does this to Palmer during his rampage through the police precinct in Saw 3D.
• No One Could Survive That!: His fate at the end of 3D, in which he's left chained up in the Bathroom with no readily apparent means of escape, acts as if it's a guaranteed death sentence. If the fact that Eric previously managed to free himself bothers you, Word of God confirmed that Lawrence anticipated this and took more care to make things inescapable for Hoffman, aside from throwing the one unbroken hacksaw out of the Bathroom.
• Not So Stoic: Hoffman has had two emotional breakdowns that manage to break through his usual stoic, composed demeanor, and both eventually end in catastrophic consequences for the people around him.
  • It's strongly implied in the flashbacks from Saw V that Hoffman had a long-term breakdown after being informed of his sister's death and seeing her corpse in person, given that the scenes set after this show him as little more than a drunken mess and it's the thing that provokes his descent into misanthropy and vengeance-fueled killing.
  • His Villainous Breakdown that begins at the end of Saw VI upon his survival of the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 is a more explicit example. Although he doesn't lose any of his concentration and determination, he becomes a full-on Ax-Crazy sociopath and drops out all his composure with his following acts in Saw 3D, only expressing rage over Jill's attempt to kill him and whoever tries to stop him.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Zig-zagged. Hoffman comes off at first as poorly spoken and unintelligent, almost a Clueless Detective in Saw IV compared to the much brighter Agent Strahm. Of course, the reveal that he's an accomplice does show he's quite capable of using police resources and covering his tracks, but as the movies go on, Hoffman's shown as ultimately not a schemer. His flawed methodology is taken apart on analysis by both John and Erickson, and he gets by more with his willpower and brutality instead of his brains and planning.
• Offscreen Inertia: When he's captured by Lawrence, Brad and Ryan in Saw 3D, he's trapped inside the Bathroom (next to Adam's corpse, no less), but with all possible methods of escape removed. The film ends with him being left to stay there until he dies, though his fate remains ambiguous due to production-related issues.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • Before becoming John's apprentice, he personally hunted down the man who had killed his sister Angelina. Given the vicious way Seth murdered her and the fact that he got away with it without remorse, Hoffman sealing him in an inescapable, particularly gruesome trap doesn't feel particularly undeserved.
  • While most of Hoffman's later victims were handpicked from John's will and for him to set up the respective games, one of the few he tests of his own accord is a gang of Neo-Nazi skinheads for his Horsepower Trap. Given how the trap appears barely survivable and the fact he later uses one of the skinheads' corpses as a decoy for a Bodybag Trick, it's strongly implied that he didn't mean to let any of them come out alive, and simply set up a trap as part of his grand scheme in Saw 3D.
• The Pen Is Mightier: Falls on the receiving end of this in 3D, when Jill stabs him in the neck with a pen in an attempt to escape from him. It doesn't hinder him at all.
• Pet the Dog: A downplayed if not subverted example. John clearly had something horrific planned for Jeff's daughter if he failed his final test as part of another game. Given Jeff gets killed shortly after learning about this game, Hoffman finds an opportunity by aborting that game and appearing to save her for good will.
• Psycho Knife Nut: His weapon of choice for direct fights/attacks as a Jigsaw Killer is a serrated knife, and it's really emphasized with his downturn into ax-craziness during the events of 3D.
• Punctuated Pounding: In Saw 3D, while bashing Jill's forehead against a table:
  Hoffman: You. Fucking. CUNT!
• The Quiet One: Not much of Hoffman's personal life is explored across the whole franchise, but Tapp describes him as preferring to work rather than speak in a written message from Tapp in Saw II: Flesh & Blood:
  "This guy is pretty quiet, sort of an introvert. Good for unpaid overtime hours, willing to do the busywork."
• Quizzical Tilt: In Saw V, he tilts his head mockingly towards Strahm after getting pushed into the glass coffin, fully aware that Strahm has just doomed himself to a grisly death with no means of escape.
• Rank Up: Thus far, he had two promotions as a police officer that happened or were mentioned in the films:
  • The first one chronologically is explained by Gibson in Saw 3D. When Gibson tried to report him for engaging in police misconduct, Hoffman received a promotion between unknown ranks because of a lack of evidence to be seen by the department (thus, they saw him as merely achieving worthy accomplishments), while Gibson was transferred to his present position at the Internal Affairs Division (much to Gibson's dismay).
  • Following his staged survival and achievements in the games at the Gideon Meatpacking Plant between Saw III and IV, Hoffman is promoted to the fictional rank of Detective Lieutenant (which could be parallel to the real-life Lieutenant Detective rank used in some American police departments) at the beginning of Saw V.
• Remember the New Guy?: He debuted in Saw III as a minor crime scene technician (with the credits referring to him as "Forensic Hoffman"). He then goes to being a detective in Saw IV, with Saw V explaining that he was one of the first officers involved in the Jigsaw case, in spite of him not being mentioned at all in the first two films.
• Revenge: Vengeance is the essence of Hoffman whenever he's not forced into following John's philosophy. The basis for John's forced recruitment of him was an inescapable trap he built for the man who killed his sister. In Saw 3D, Hoffman's sole motivation for almost all the havoc he wreaks throughout and all the people he slaughters is revenge against Jill for her attempt on his life.
• Sadist: He enjoys the carnage he causes and people suffering in the games, and openly admits as such to John.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: He tries to pull this off at the end of Saw 3D — key word being tries. He accomplished his goal of killing Jill, and with his identity known to the public, there was no reason for him to stick around. After packing a lot of cash, a gun and setting his lair on fire, he makes to leave. Whether he was planning to get a new identity and put his Jigsaw life behind him or just wait until the heat had died down will likely never be answered, since Lawrence intervened before either could occur.
• Serrated Blade of Pain: A serrated knife. It's the tool he uses to cut out jigsaw puzzle pieces from dead victims in the traps that he sets up (in contrast to John's more professional scalpel), and his primary weapon for direct murders. Dr. Adam Heffner takes notice of the former case in Saw VI because of the resulting skin abrasions around the pieces, in comparison to the neater borders of those cut with John's scalpel. It's also his hidden weapon.
  Heffner: The skin abrasions. They're indicative of a knife of a partially serrated edge.
  Hoffman: So?
  Heffner: So all the other cuts were made with a near-perfect blade of surgical quality.
• Serial Killer: Takes up John's mantle of this after his and Amanda's deaths.
• Skyward Scream: After escaping what was supposed to be his death through the inescapable Reverse Beartrap, he howls this in a way that signifies his complete descent into insanity.
• Slashed Throat: Does this to Erickson in Saw VI, although it was targeted more towards the latter's jugular vein rather than his actual throat.
• Smug Smiler: Makes the smuggest of grins when he sees Strahm flail around in vain from his inevitable death, though he quickly looks away the moment the latter begins to get Squashed Flat.
• The Sociopath: He seriously surpasses John in how many lines he's willing to cross. While John had a moral lesson in mind with his doings and gave his victims a chance to survive, Hoffman makes half his traps inescapable in the belief that murderers can't redeem themselves, being hypocritical in that statement while claiming so, while the other half force their victims into making sadistic choices, where one can live only at the expense of another's death. He horrifyingly blackmailed Amanda, a Broken Bird with standards, simply because he didn't like her. He's also willing to murder people whom he worked with for over 20 years just to get away, as well as putting Strahm in an inescapable trap and framing him for the murders and other crimes he himself committed in Saw V. He fully crosses the line when he murders John's ex-wife with the Reverse Bear Trap in Saw 3D.
• Spree Killer: Seeing as his cover as a Jigsaw Killer is blown, Hoffman decides to go all-out against the police force in Saw 3D, killing everyone he comes across with either his bare hands or any weapons he can get his hands on, eventually ending with him locking Jill in the original Reverse Bear Trap, which goes off successfully.
• The Starscream: A flashback in Saw VI reveals that he blackmailed Amanda into failing her test in Saw III, setting off the chain of events that led to the deaths of both her and John in quick succession. Hoffman takes this chance to take credit for saving Jeff's daughter and get a promotion. Jill later catches onto this deception, and angrily tries to sabotage Hoffman's test.
• Start of Darkness: Saw V explored his Start of Darkness in detail. To summarize it, he had a mental breakdown upon the death of his sister, and it was his Jigsaw-framed murder of her abusive boyfriend and killer what led John to forcibly recruit him into the Jigsaw mantle via blackmail.
• The Stoic: He's a very composed and usually inexpressive person, like John and unlike Amanda. However, this goes completely out the window twice, first when he broke down in tears upon seeing his sister's dead corpse, and later when Jill nearly kills him.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Despite being the most experienced and competent member of John's inner circle, Hoffman is never friendly or devoted to him the way that the other apprentices are.
  • John's interactions with Hoffman are never warm (like John's are with Amanda), and Hoffman never seems to forget that they only met and worked together because John kidnapped and blackmailed him. After deliberately causing John's death via indirect means during the events of Saw III and IV, he ultimately chooses to set up and execute John's remaining planned games for his own sadism, rather than because he believed in John's philosophy. Hoffman does appear to be respectful enough to closely follow the instructions John had posthumously left him for said games, though.
  • Hoffman and Amanda can barely stand to be around each other. It's strongly implied Amanda felt threatened by Hoffman as competition for John's approval and/or affection (something that Hoffman never seemed to seek out), and Hoffman merely saw Amanda as a pathetic self-harming junkie. This is probably a major reason why Hoffman sabotages Amanda's Secret Test of Character in III.
• That Liar Lies: In Saw VI, he says this to Perez as he's stabbing her to death.
  Hoffman: Who else knows about me? Who else fucking knows about me?
  Perez: E-Everyone...
  Hoffman: You lie... You're fucking lying...
• Tom the Dark Lord: The notorious successor of Jigsaw (already named John) who racked a much larger body count than him goes by the plain name of Mark.
• Took a Level in Badass: Over the course of Saw VI, twice, and both at times when it seems like he's going down in defeat. And then even moreso in 3D.
  • In the first time, as his attempt to frame Strahm as Jigsaw's second accomplice pitifully falls apart in front of him, Hoffman successfully pulls off a move that only a desperate idiot would normally attempt - he kills two gun-carrying FBI agents (and fairly major characters) using only a knife, a cup of coffee and a minor character as a Human Shield; Hoffman then works to re-establish Strahm as the Jigsaw accomplice by planting his fingerprints all over the crime lab, then setting it aflame... with a still-breathing but rapidly dying Erickson left behind.
  • Just minutes later, Hoffman is on the wrong end of a new Reverse Bear Trap model thanks to Jill, who reveals that this is part of John's will; as she exits the room, Hoffman bashes his way out of his restraints by using the trap, prevents the trap from opening fully, and finally rips the thing off, only getting his right cheek shred in the process.
  • This gets exaggerated in Saw 3D where Hoffman is on the run from police, finds time to set up traps, and performs very complex plans on his own. This culminates with him assaulting a police station and killing over a dozen police officers like he's The Terminator. He succeeds without getting meaningfully hurt and only gets captured later by Dr. Gordon. 3D turns him from a serial killer trying to keep his head down to a full-on supervillain, like the type seen in action thriller movies.
• Uncertain Doom: Whether Hoffman perished from Lawrence imprisoning him is currently left in the air. Although invokedWord of God in Saw 3D's DVD Commentary indicated he died (and that Gordon removed any means Hoffman could have taken advantage of to free himself, like the toilet lid Eric Matthews used to smash his foot in Saw III), Costas Mandylor was asked to reprise his role, but this was put on hold with changes to developmental plans for future installments in the series. After the release of Spiral, Darren Lynn Bousman claimed that there were discussions to bring back Hoffman for a later movie. Eventually, Hoffman made his first appearance since 3D in X, which is an Interquel.
• Viler New Villain: While he's not necessarily introduced as such, Hoffman is progressively shown to be a much more immoral and dangerous Big Bad than John (and even later killers and copycats), being one of the very few who directly murders people without using death traps. He eventually becomes an absolute sociopath with his Villainous Breakdown throughout Saw 3D.
• Villainous Breakdown: After escaping the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 in Saw VI, he drops all his pretense of the Jigsaw philosophy and leans fully into an Ax-Crazy psychopath over the course of Saw 3D. This outcome triggers John's plan to enlist Dr. Gordon to put him down for good, which only pushes Hoffman's breakdown further.
  "What do you think you're doing? What the fuck do you think you're doing?! Huh?! No! You can't fucking do this to me! Fuck you! No! NO!!"
• Villainous Valour: He's a murderous bastard, but escaping a Reverse Bear Trap without any readily apparent means to do so was pretty damn impressive.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He's a decorated and highly respected police lieutenant with over twenty years of experience (as he mentions in Saw V) and numerous promotions under his belt (a fact that's pointed out by Perez in Saw IV). He's also a violent Serial Killer who happens to be Jigsaw's longest-tenured accomplice and eventual successor. That all goes out the window come Saw 3D, when Jill outs him to his police department's Internal Affairs division, making him become the most wanted criminal in the city.
• Wham Line: Hoffman gets two of them in Saw VI:
  • Not so much the line as Hoffman being the one who delivers it once the voice on Seth Baxter's tape is decoded in front of Perez and Erickson.
    Hoffman: Right now, you're feeling helpless.
  • Just after the FBI tech lab scene, Hoffman finds the document Pamela had previously given to Jill in his watchroom's desk, at which we find out it was the letter Amanda read back in Saw III. The ensuing flashback montage has a voice-over of the letter's text in Hoffman's voice.
    "Amanda— you were with Cecil the night Jill lost Gideon. You killed their child. You know it, and I know it. So do exactly as I say; kill Lynn Denlon, or I will tell John what you did."
• Wham Shot: He provides a couple of them.
  • In the climax of Saw IV, Hoffman is seemingly electrocuted when the water from the melting ice block that Eric was standing on reaches the electrified chair Hoffman was restrained to. Immediately after Rigg plays Art's tape, Hoffman is seen standing up and walking from the background behind Rigg, without any signs of having been actually electrocuted.
    • In the film's theatrical cut, this moment is changed to an additional shot exclusive to this version, in which Hoffman is seen untying the chair's fake restraints.
  • Saw VI doubles this with a Wham Line (via voiceover). When Hoffman leaves the FBI's tech lab and returns to his watchroom for William Easton's trial, he's shocked to find the letter in Saw III that caused Amanda's Villainous Breakdown, at which we finally see what exactly was written in it; it was a blackmail note, written by Hoffman.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: In the flashback in Saw V preceding John's abduction of him, Hoffman gets randomly attacked by a dog to his surprise, but when he hears the dog's owner referring to it as "Peewee," he quickly switches to giving a short, displeased remark about it.
  "Peewee. Shit."
• Wife-Basher Basher: His first full-on murder victim (after he had killed at least one person more incidentally beforehand) was a Domestic Abuser who killed his sister.
• Would Hit a Girl: He personally kills Perez and Jill (and violently knocks out the latter) in the sixth and seventh movies, respectively.
• Xanatos Gambit: The plan he enacts against Strahm in Saw V. The outcome is what he had hoped for, with Strahm getting himself killed and the FBI believing him to be the wanted Jigsaw apprentice, throwing them off the scent of Hoffman himself. However, even if Strahm had followed his instructions and survived the final trap, the FBI would have still thought he was the apprentice in question, meaning he would have been either arrested, forced into hiding, or possibly even Hoffman being able to blackmail him into actually becoming an accomplice. And if things had somehow gone really wrong and resulted in Hoffman being killed by the trap, then it would have looked as if Strahm had killed him to cover up his identity, making him doubly screwed.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Hoffman is a master at playing lightning rounds of this. When things fall apart, he'll think on his feet. For example, in Saw VI, Hoffman is called by Erickson and Perez to go to the local FBI headquarters' audio lab with them, where an audio technician is analyzing the Pendulum Trap's tape. The analysis reveals that Hoffman's the true second wanted apprentice, so his plan to frame Strahm fails. Hoffman pulls an insane move in response: he murders the technician, Erickson and Perez with only a knife and a cup of coffee. Afterwards, he plants Strahm's fingerprints all over the lab, and then burns the place down.
• You Killed My Father: Back when they were dating, Seth was an active Domestic Abuser to Hoffman's sister Angelina, a cycle that eventually culminated in him murdering her; he was subsequently condemned to life imprisonment, but was freed about five years later due to a technicality. Hoffman's response to this liberation is putting Seth in an inescapable Jigsaw frame-up scenario as revenge for his sister's death.

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"The game begins tonight."

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