Slashing The Seats

Interceptor takes a look at the most evil corporate parasites in living movie memory and comes up with a list of six. Here are the most dastardly, money-hungry and megalomaniacal enterprises in history. And if you think we’ve missed one – get yourself to the comments.

1: The Company: Aliens

Despite the fact that it already owns the whole planet and most of the known universe, The Company still wants more – and it’s willing to sacrifice every man, woman and child on Earth if it means it can sell more experimental bio-weapons to the colonial marines. Strangely, it persists in this business model against the odds. A company so terrible, it would hire the uncool one from My Two Dads to run its foreign offices.

2: Cloverleaf: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The name may conjour up images of rolling Irish meadows, but don’t let the faint whistle of pipes and whiff o’ peat bogs put you off the scent. Cloverleaf is run by a murderous non-human entity so twisted; he actually thinks mini-malls are a good idea. Not only does he hate public transport – and private detectives – but the vile Judge Doom would happily kill Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouseand even a very, very cute shoe to destroy it.

3: BiffCo: Back to the Future Part II

No-one really knows what the sinister BiffCo actually does, but the hints are more than enough for it to rank among cinema’s most deliciously evil industrial conglomerates. Overgrown high-school bully Biff Tannen ploughs his ill-gotten gains into terrible schemes that appear to involve gambling, toxic waste, giving Lea Thompson breast implants and the frantic production of Velour Tiger-Skin upholstery. Compared to his interior decorating skills, bumping off local Sci-Fi authors is the least of Tannen’s crimes.

4: OCP: RoboCop

The Evil Corporation’s Evil Corporation. OCP are wantonly eeevil, lusting for money and power, and not giving a shit who they trample, kill or mutate in the process. A company so ruthless, the boss is even called Dick. Omni Consumer Products struts its diabolical stuff on the world stage, building dodgy reactors in the middle of rainforests, dispossessing the poor, shutting down the police and replacing them with sociopathic tank-cum-chickens and, of course, putting manic-depressive dead people and crazed drug addicts in charge of solid Titanium super-suits. It’s all in a day’s work for these paragons of rat-bastardry. The only company on the list to literally make employees piss their pants with fear and, while boardroom killings are a recurring theme here, none are quite as messy as OCP’s ED-209 debacle.

5: Cohaagen: Total Recall

Seemingly a wandering Ronin of a CEO, Cohaagen’s lack of any discernable company hasn’t stop him from engaging in high level corporate gittiness, seemingly for its own sake. While others on the list bow at the altar of profit, Cohaagen finds evil is its own reward. Building cheap domes and cultivating three-breasted hookers and psychic children is quite literally the tip of the iceberg for this conniving bugger, spending years exploiting his workers and alien technology alike. Would you work for a man who, despite being your best friend, would happily lobotomise you and demote you from VP to ‘Road Driller’ in order to get a job done? Just pipped to the top spot because of his generous benefits package – Sharon Stone in a pair of tiny Lycra shorts.

6: The Empire: Star Wars

OK, So the Empire isn’t exactly a publicly owned company, but it still manages to exhibit the very worst aspects of corporate culture. In between ruthless expansion and attempts to corner the intergalactic shipping trade, The Empire isn’t above a bit of micro-management; making people wear stupid high-button shirts even though they sit alone in a room pushing buttons all day. The only reward for hapless employees is the Death Star Disco, with it’s awesome EuroTrance light show and Bass system. Meanwhile, the boss roams the corridors, poking his respirator in where it’s not needed and offing members of the board if they disagree with his clap-trap, new age policies, all the while trying to build a GAP-esque identikit uniform fashion empire – something that the jumpsuit and waistcoat fashion pirates don’t take too kindly to. It’s Armani versus shabby chic on an interstellar level.

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