A terrible job can be even worse than not having one at all, but it’s not always the work itself that makes a job unbearable. Sometimes, the real horror of a 9-5 comes in the form of bad management, and that’s likely the reason why there are so many corporate horror movies featuring sociopathic managers and supervisors.
In anticipation of Aaron Fisher’s upcoming Corporate Retreat, in theaters on May 22, presenting us with a worst-case scenario where executives are forced to take part in sick games in order to save their own skins, we’ve decided to come up with a list highlighting six of the worst bosses in horror!
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be considering any character in a leadership position who also happens to display extreme (and often malicious) negligence in the way that they treat their subordinates – regardless of the overall quality of the movie they come from. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own detestable favorites if you think we missed a particularly terrible boss within the genre.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) – Aliens (1986)
Weyland-Yutani has got to be one of the worst companies to work for in all of fiction. From employing homicidal androids as middle management to making it clear that the crew is expendable should they ever run into something valuable, the faceless corporation behind most of the human error in the Alien franchise appears to have a knack for producing horrible bosses.
Of course, the most glaring example of the company’s bureaucratic cruelty happens to be Paul Reiser’s profit-obsessed Carter Burke. An egotistical manipulator who’s willing to allow our main characters to be forcefully impregnated by xenomorphs in order to protect his employers’ interests, Burke is one character that I think we all wished had a more explicit death scene.
5. Inácio (Murilo Benício) – Friendly Beast (2017)
Murilo Benício is already a household name in Brazil, though he’s usually typecast in comedic roles due to a series of successful parts in popular telenovelas from the 2000s. However, I’d argue that the actor’s absolute best performance comes from an underappreciated indie horror flick directed by Gabriela Amaral back in 2017.
In Friendly Beast (O Animal Cordial in the original Portuguese), Murilo plays the troubled owner of a high-end restaurant who ends up revealing his vicious inner self during a robbery that escalates into a horrific kidnapping involving his employees. The sadistic Inácio is such a toxic employer that the criminals soon come to regret their choice of target, and that’s precisely why he earns a spot on this list!
4. John Milton (Al Pacino) – The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
Many workers claim to have been employed by the literal devil, but the morally grey lawyer Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) is one of the few characters to actually mean it. After joining a law firm in New York, Kevin soon realizes that the new job may very well be costing him his soul due to the infernal machinations of his cheekily named boss, “John Milton” (Al Pacino in one of his most entertaining roles ever).
While Pacino is a joy to watch as a snarky rendition of Satan let loose in 90s New York City, Milton also happens to be a genuinely terrifying presence that embodies all the worst traits of 20th-century businessmen.
3. General Lee Roy (Robin Watkins) – Poultrygeist (2005)
Troma’s Poultrygeist may not be for the faint of heart, with the film’s copious amounts of gore and excessive potty humor making it a tough watch even for hardened genre veterans, but the over-the-top presentation only enhances the flick’s underlying message about how fast-food giants exploit both their customers and their employees.
That’s why it makes sense for American Chicken Bunker founder General Lee Roy (Robin Watkins) to be a ridiculous Colonel Sanders parody willing to serve radioactive slop to his customers in order to guarantee maximum profits. Funnily enough, Watkins does such a great job with this hateable character that he’s more off-putting in human form than as a giant mutated chicken zombie.
2. Dracula (Nicolas Cage) – Renfield (2023)
Fictional bosses being depicted as predatory vampires is something of a genre cliché by now, but Chris McKay’s horror comedy Renfield stands out from similar films by revealing that our protagonist’s employer is the original blood-sucking bastard himself, Count Dracula!
Brought to life by a wonderfully over-the-top Nicolas Cage, Renfield’s take on Dracula is so delightfully mean that even the film’s biggest critics have to admit that it still contains one of the most memorable incarnations of Stoker’s iconic villain. That being said, while he’s certainly fun to watch, Cage’s Dracula remains one of the biggest HR nightmares on this list.
1. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) – American Psycho (2000)
The only entry here where the terrible boss also happens to be the main character, Patrick Bateman, would still be on this list even if he weren’t a homicidal maniac. From performative lunches and meetings (where we never learn what he actually does within the company) to treating his secretary like garbage, Bateman’s working persona is so scary because it’s an all-too common example of redundant management and casual workplace misogyny.
To make matters worse, a throwaway line in Mary Harron’s masterful adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel suggests that Bateman is something of a nepobaby, as his father “practically owns the company” he works at. Couple that with the occasional murder of annoying business partners, and you have a recipe for the world’s worst boss!
Corporate Retreat releases in theaters this Friday; get tickets now.
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