10 Sci-Fi Movie Villains Who Actually Won
5. STEM - Upgrade
Leigh Whannell's terrific low-budget sci-fi actioner Upgrade follows the preposterously-monikered Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green), who after being left paralysed by a mugging is implanted with an A.I. chip called STEM which allows him to regain control of his body.
STEM helps Grey mete out bloody revenge on his assailants, with Grey allowing STEM to take control of his body to perform a series of grisly executions.
But at film's end, we learn that STEM is actually self-aware and has been plotting the entire time to break Grey's mind, allowing it to take permanent control of him.
At the very end of the movie STEM accomplishes this task, forcing Grey's consciousness into an idyllic dream state while STEM controls his body in reality, killing Detective Cortez (Betty Gabriel) - the only person left standing with any awareness of what's going on - and disappearing into the night.
Though Upgrade was a modest commercial success, to date neither a sequel nor proposed TV spin-off have materialised, and so STEM's victory remains presently uncontested.