8. Day Of The Dead (1985) - Captain Rhodes
The world has gone to hell in a hand basket due to a Zombie Holocaust. Survivors are holing up underground where they are working on a cure. The base is run by the military with Captain Rhodes in charge. A mad scientist, Dr Logan, is trying to get zombies to behave by playing Beethoven in their ears and getting them to thumb through Stephen King novels - Bub in particular is his prize specimen. Considerable tension exists between the military and scientists. Captain Rhodes is particularly incensed by the scientists and lets them know all about it in a shouty, macho, tyrannical sort of way. He is fed up with the scientist's hemming and hawing. This all sounds reasonable enough but Captain Rhodes is a scumbag. He talks about his 'men' but when the proverbial hits the fan and zombies come into the compound, he buggers off by himself and leaves the zombies to feast on the remaining soldiers. A scumbag to the end, as Bub shoots him (in return for Rhodes shooting Dr Logan) he opens a door full of zombies and he is dismembered, disembowelled and eaten. As his legs are pulled away, he shouts "Choke on them! Choke on them!". Captain Rhodes is a very well written character which explains how he gets under your skin. He is a bully and a boor - a chauvinistic pig and a despot among his men. People should help each other in apocalyptic times and not act on their egotistical whims. Rhodes is a great horror movie scumbag because of his bellicose rantings and general personality disorder.