10 More Horror Movie Characters You Couldn't Wait To See Die

6. Carter Burke - Aliens

Friday the 13th
20th Century Fox

While the greater 'big bads' of the Alien franchise are the titular Xenomorphs, those toothy blighters have absolutely nothing on Carter Burke of the series' second outing.

Played by Paul Reiser, Burke is a Weyland-Yutani executive whose charisma convinces Ripley to join him and a group of Colonial Marines on a mission to investigate alien eggs on the LV-426 moon. As Carter famously tells Sigourney Weaver's franchise lead, he's really an "okay guy".

Of course, in reality Burke is a two-faced, self-serving sack of sh*t whose sole aim was to use Ripley and the Marines to gain possession of these eggs and use the species as a biological weapon. Unbeknownst to our core crew, this is very much a suicide mission, with Ripley and Co. expendable assets to serve the greater good of Weyland-Yutani. To paraphrase a certain other fan favourite franchise of cinema, if they die, they die.

Even worse, another element of Burke's masterplan called for Ripley to be impregnated by a Facehugger, which would subsequently allow for Welyand-Yutani to bring the alien presence into Earth's borders undetected.

Fortunately for audiences, Burke does finally meet his end at the hands of a Xenomorph, although the full extent of this demise sadly takes place off-screen. Still, so satisfying was this result, Paul Reiser famously noted how even his own mother was applauding when Burke bit the bullet.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.