These corrupt corporate entities wreak havoc in Resident Evil, RoboCop and more.
In the upcoming sci-fi film District 9, society struggles to deal with stragglers from a collapsed alien civilization who find their way to Earth. The creatures' welfare is ultimately entrusted to the nefarious Multi-National United, a private company who are only in it for profit.
Taking their place among the ranks of archetypal evil mega-corporations in movies, MNU care nothing about the alien refugees. All they want is to profit from their advanced weapons systems.
How does MNU stack up against their evil fictional film competitors? Let's find out...
Umbrella Corp.
Featured In: Resident Evil
Originally created for Capcom's popular survival horror videogame series, Resident Evil, Umbrella Corporation remained a nefarious entity when the series made the jump to the big screen in 2002.
While the bioengineering pharmaceutical company has a public front, producing cosmetics, food products, and more, Umbrella is actually part of the military industrial complex. Heavily involved in the research and creation of bioweaponry, Umbrella wrought disaster upon themselves and the residents of Raccoon City when their T-virus is leaked creating legions of infectious zombies and Lickers.
Umbrella continue their evil exploits in the sequel, Resident Evil: Apocalypse. But don't worry, residents of Raccoon City, they've got a containment plan... nuclear obliteration. Everything's gonna be just fine.
Weyland-Yutani Corp.Featured In: Alien
Often referred to simply as The Company, Weyland-Yutani is the bad-to-the-bone corporate bastards who f'd with Ellen Ripley for all those years. Ever since we first met them in the original Alien, The Company has been sending its poor space faring working-class schlubs into highly dangerous situations just so that it could procure a xenomorph -- that's an alien to you -- in order to (you guessed it) weaponize the thing.
So if that means having an android pose as your ship's science officer -- an android who tries to shove rolled-up magazines down your throat as a means of homicide, natch -- then so be it. Or if it means leaving poor little Newt all alone on a planet full of aliens -- where they mostly come at night. Mostly -- then that's just the way it goes. Heck, Weyland-Yutani was even willing to kill off its main character in Alien 3, only to resurrect her as a clone in a lame fourth movie. These guys will go to no end, we're telling you.
Tyrell CorporationFeatured In: Blade Runner
Overlooking the smog-covered and hellish mega-cityscape of Los Angeles, circa 2019, from his 700-plus story headquarters, Dr. Eldon Tyrell lives in the lap of retro-futuristic luxury while the huddled masses far below attempt to eke out a meager existence in the shadow of his megalithic Tyrell Corporation. A bio-tech company with the motto "More human than human," this evil company's chief product is human-like androids called Replicants -- sentient beings which are used in Off-world colonies for slave labor. Nice, huh?
Eldon Tyrell, and by extension his corporation, doesn't seem to be out to rule the world necessarily; rather, he's just in it for the money, in true evil corporation fashion. So the moral and ethical dilemmas of creating enslaved life forms with built-in four-year life-spans seems to escape him for the most part. Which is funny, really, when one considers that Tyrell doesn't manage to get past those four years himself after one of his creations does the old thumbs-in-the-eyes trick on him.
Cyberdyne SystemsFeatured In: The Terminator
As convoluted as the Terminator franchise timeline has become, it's sort of difficult to say, but it seems that Cyberdyne systems didn't start out so bad. Founded as a benign manufacturing company, Cyberbyne got all evil once they started reverse engineering technology from a T-800 from the future that was destroyed in their facility. They used the future-tech to create a powerful new microprocessor and become a major military contractor. It's pretty much all downhill from there.
An unknown series of events culminate in Cyberdyne's development of Skynet, an A.I.-based supercomputer network that's created with the intent of replacing humans as aircraft pilots and controlling military weapons systems. Horrific events begin to unfold, however, when the system becomes sentient shortly after going online. Human operators try to shut Skynet down, but the network retaliates by launching a nuclear attack which initiates a global thermonuclear war. That's pretty evil.
Soylent CorporationFeatured In: Soylent Green
Spoiler Alert: Soylent Green is people.
Yes, shocking as it may seem, the titular foodstuff from the 1973 Charlton Heston not-so-classic is in fact the reprocessed, emerald-hued remains of a bunch of dead folks. As is wont to happen in your average run-of-the-mill futuristic dystopia where the Earth's population has outgrown its resources, the world of Soylent Green isn't a fun place to be. Most people must subsist on processed food which comes courtesy of the (secretly nefarious) Soylent Corporation, with their latest, greatest product Soylent Green being billed as made of "high-energy plankton"… but it's not. Obviously. And that makes the Soylent Corporation evil. Obviously.
So as in his other sci-fi output of the era (Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man), Heston tries to beat the system once again, but doesn't really succeed, once again. And we still love him for it after all these years.
OCPFeatured In: RoboCop
Also known as OCP, RoboCop's Omni Consumer Products is omnipresent (hence the name!), with their offerings found everywhere in society, the government, and even the military. But of course it's their robotic hardware which is of most interest to us, including the trigger-happy clunker ED-209 and the half-man, half-machine RoboCop!
OCP, run by the inimitable Dick Jones in the first film in the series, also has a mission to turn Detroit into its own privatized city -- Delta City -- which would mean that its citizens would have to buy stock in their hometown, and that civic services like the police would essentially be owned by the company. That's just… wrong. But that's also where RoboCop comes in, to protect and serve as it were. And you know how that goes!
BiffCo EnterprisesFeatured In: Back to the Future Part II
Biff Tannen is a real prick. It's no surprise then, in Back to the Future II's alternate "Biffhorrific" 1985, that Biff is now the CEO of an evil corporation.
After 2015-Biff overhears a conversation between Doc and Marty, he steals the DeLorean and travels back in time to present his 1955 self with a future-copy of Grays Sports Almanac. The younger, opportunistic Biff uses the results to gamble on sporting events and become the richest man on Earth. He subsequently founds BiffCo, a company that invests in toxic waste dumps and other environmentally-devestating industries. BiffCo razes the historic Hill Valley Courthouse and constructs a massive 27-story hotel and casino on the site. The long-term effects of BiffCo's activities leave the community blighted, and earn it the nickname "Hell Valley."
Biff uses his corporation's power to manipulate governments, and even changes the course of world events. He helps Richard Nixon get elected to a fifth term as president, extending the Vietnam War.
Rekall Featured In: Total Recall
Rekall, the corporation which runs the memory-altering business in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall, may not be inherently evil in their mission. But anyone in the business of simulated reality is treading on thin ice. Add to that the fact that they're totally in cahoots with corrupt officials and are erasing the memories of those who might do them harm... that's pretty evil.
In the film, Schwarzenegger's Quaid visits the Rekall facility to buy an "ego trip" to Mars in which he'll become a spy. In spite of the risks associated with the procedure -- it can cause permanent brain damage -- Quaid goes through with it. But as the process begins Quaid has a violent outburst and it becomes clear that his memory has been altered before. Quaid later learns that his real name is Hauser, and that he's a former spy who worked for baddie Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox), but became disillusioned. Rekall, under the orders of Cohaagen, brainwashed him.
Energy Corporation Featured In: Rollerball
Rollerball, from 1975, may not be quite as well remembered as a lot of the other films on this list, but it remains a touchstone sci-fi/thriller for genre fans of a certain age. It's just one year before the events of Blade Runner -- 2018! -- and James Caan is the star player in the title bloodsport, a gladiatorial take on roller derby that has to be seen to be believed.
Behind this hugely popular phenomenon are a variety of global corporations which have supplanted traditional governmental bodies and now run the world. The Energy Corporation is Caan's team's sponsor, but his worldwide success and recognition is problematic for the Orwellian corporation, which prefers anonymity over celebrity in its citizens. Eventually Energy arranges for a special Rollerball game without penalties, player subs, time-limits, or -- essentially -- any hope of survival. Bright side? At least there don't seem to be any Mideast energy woes to deal with.
Initech Featured In: Office Space
When you think about it, there's really nothing more evil than making human beings into office drones who sit in drab cubicles all day. And so it's only fitting that Initech, the soulless hyper-managed software company from Mike Judge's 1999 comedy Office Space, make our list.
Initech employee Peter Gibbons is a disgruntled computer programmer who must deal with the company's bullying management style, personified in VP Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), a habitual micro-manager who often asks his employees to work Saturdays and hassles them about filling out meaningless TPS reports. But Peter is freed from corporate oppression after a hypnosis goes wrong and leaves him permanently chill.
The rest of the film follows Peter and his laid off IT-department friends as they deal with their disillusionment by plotting to steal from Initech by implanting a virus in the company computer system.
