Bear Trap

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    A trap that's huge, about two or three feet across, with big zigzag teeth, and constantly trembles with tension, and snaps if you breathe on it funny—unless you're the intended target, who can jump up and down on it safely. The standard mode of exit is always to chew your own leg off, no matter who or what you are.

    Depending on the genre, this can be either funny (especially as Amusing Injuries) or horrifying when someone gets snared by it.

    For horror movies, you can expect these in wooded areas, no doubt set and placed by some deranged killer.

    See also Bear Trap Bed.

    Examples of Bear Trap include:

    Film

    Eddie Valiant: Nice booby trap.

    • Tom and Karen nearly step into a pair of them in Hard Rain.
    • Swan gets is right leg caught in one in Cannibal! The Musical. He's told to look on the bright side, as at least he didn't get his head caught in it.
    • The "hero" from Ravenous used one of these in the movie's climax. It could also be considered a Chekhov's Gun as it can be seen being played around with various times earlier in the film.
    • The "reverse bear trap" in Saw 1 and 6 is thematically similar, except that when it goes off it snaps violently open, and as it is hooked into the victim's upper and lower jaws... In Saw 3-D the audience finally sees the intended result, and it's brutal.
    • Bear traps are frequent props in The Three Stooges shorts, notably in "The Brideless Groom," where Moe and Larry try to use one to break up an all-female brawl. Naturally they're caught in their own trap.
    • In the remake of Friday the 13 th, Jason placed a bear trap or two around the forest. Definitely not played for cartoony laughs.
    • Severance: Andy gets caught in one of these and loses his foot when his co-workers try to free him.
    • In the climax of Disney's The Fox and the Hound (film), when Amos Slade tries to flee a bear he's pissed off, he gets his foot caught in one of his own bear traps. It's rather frightening.
    • A character gets thrown head first into a bear trap in Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud.
    • Used in Ladyhawke by the wolf trapper. He ends up Hoist by His Own Petard in the end.
    • In Aussie horror Dying Breed a character winds up caught in more than one of these devices (including one around his head).
    • Straw Dogs has one of the home invaders trying to break into Dustin Hoffman's house fall victim to a Chekhov's Gun trap which, whilst not intended for bears, operates very similarly in mechanics and effect.
    • In The Cabin in the Woods, Pa Buckner uses a Bear Trap on a chain as a thrown capture-weapon.
    • In the 1930 Our Gang episode Bear Shooters, the kids try to trap a man in a gorilla suit [1] with one. It Gets Worse... for him, though.

    Live Action TV

    • Often used as a Zonk on the current version of Let's Make a Deal.
    • Parodied in a Kids in The Hall sketch where the trappers targets are office workers. (One of the workers actually manages to escape, and is seen hopping away on his one good leg, so the trappers don't give chase.)

    Francois: Shall we go after him, Jacques?
    Jacques: No, Francois, let that one go. He has spirit! Someday, he may be vice president.

    • The Drew Carey Show: a Groundhog Day Loop Cold Open had Mimi setting a pizza-bear-trap for Drew.
    • Much of the Farscape episode "Revenging Angel" was a tribute to the classic Warner Brothers cartoons. Naturally, character picking on John Crichton winds up with his leg in one of these.
    • The John Goodman episode of Muppets Tonight had John accidentally dropped out a window by Andy and Randy Pig into a truck containing a large number of mousetraps... and one bear trap.

    Toys

    • Bionicle: the promo animation for Hahli Inika had her running through a field of bear traps. Luckily, her Mask Power helped her get through.

    Video Games

    • Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas have these as trap hazards, just to make creeping through dark, Ghoul-infested subway tunnels all the more memorable. They're great at crippling your legs, reducing your speed to a painful hobble, which is especially brutal on New Vegas' Hardcore Mode since limbs are much harder to heal. And in the New Vegas expansion Dead Money you get to see what happens when the mooks decide to wear a bear trap on their knuckles: the Bear Trap Fist.
    • Resident Evil 4: Leon encounters a wolf snared by a bear trap. The player can choose whether to free or ignore it. Doing the former will result in the wolf helping you against El Gigante.
      • There are also a number of bear-traps set in various areas waiting for you to step in them. Doing so causes you damage and also freezes you in place as Leon has to stop and pry it open. Naturally, they don't hurt enemies running towards you, and they can be avoided by shooting them, which caused them to spring early.
    • A lot of these in Dragon Age. However, all the characters are apparently tough enough to be merely pinned to the spot for a few seconds by them.
      • You can also build your own if you have the appropriate skill and parts. Sadly, they're usually Awesome but Impractical as you can't set them (or any other traps) if there's an enemy who can see you, but against some opponents who'll only turn hostile after you've triggered something specific, a few well-placed bear-traps will turn what would have been a tough encounter into a Curb Stomp Battle.
    • Most Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, etc.) had the mouse cursor turn into a bear trap icon when the player moused over a trap with the "Remove Traps" ability was on.
    • Alan Wake has lots of bear-traps scattered across the woods, apparently due to poachers. Walking into one will cost you a bit of health, and pin you to the ground for a while. Worse, EVERY TIME you walk into one, it will cause a Taken to spawn nearby and run up to attack you while you're helpless. Oh, and in one part with bear traps, you don't have any guns to fight the Taken that spawns if you step on a trap.
    • In Naughty Bear, bear-traps are - appropriately enough - one of your main weapons against the other bears. You plant 'em on paths, and then walk up to kill or scare whatever bears get caught in them. And unlike the similarly-useful Mines, they can be reused!
    • Limbo
    • Quest for Glory I has you find a talking FOX in one of these.
    • Hunter traps in World of Warcraft look like bear traps. Strangely, none of them actually does what you'd expect from a bear trap (root the target in place) unless the hunter spends talent points for it.
      • They did intend a bear trap skill for cataclysm that would snare targets, but because snaring was all it does, they ultimately decided it wasn't worth it and swapped it out for other skills.
    • Nethack has bear traps which merely pins down you (or a monster) until it gets pried open. You can also jump out, but this is not recommended. If you manage to disarm it you can set it up again at a different location.
    • Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Mikiko Hayami carries one on her parka. It snaps shut during her breakdown.
    • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has these as a minor trap hazard in dungeons. You can move them about to set up your own traps as well.
    • Questron II places these traps in the dungeon. They destroy armor, and you can't attempt to detect them if they are behind a door (causing them to hit without warning).
    • In No One Lives Forever 2, you can place beartraps. They have the effect of holding enemies still whilst they struggle to free themselves, and whilst you line up the sights of your crossbow.
    • Lead and Gold has this with the sniper class. She can lay them down to incapacitate enemies whilst she takes aim.

    Web Comics

    Web Original

    Western Animation

    1. ↑ one of two moonshiners trying to scare the them off
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