Josh Becker Movies

In the Present, a scuba diver recovers an ancient scroll and presents it to the Center for the Historical Accuracy of Key Research in Ancient Mythology (or CHAKRAM for short). Much to the shock and awe of two fervent Xena: Warrior Princess fans, the scroll proves beyond a doubt that Xena (Lucy Lawless) was once married to war god Ares (Kevin Smith). In a dizzying succession of flashbacks and flashforwards featuring a number of familiar Xena castmembers (some of them in dual roles), the truth about Xena and Ares' matrimonial bonds is revealed -- and somebody isn't going to be very happy about it. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) is faced with a momentous decision: She can either leave the Amazon village and embark on future adventures with Xena (Lucy Lawless) and baby Eve, or she can stay behind and reign as the Amazon Queen. Jealously coveting the queendom herself, scheming Amazon Cyane (Shelley Edwards) sets up a scenario to prove that Gabrielle is unworthy. It seems that poor Joxer (Ted Raimi) has been arrested for spying on a group of Amazon bathing beauties, and the penalty for his crime is the loss of an eye -- a sentence that must be carried out by Gabrielle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Xena (Lucy Lawless), Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), and Joxer (Ted Raimi) set out to recover the mystic diamond that provides illumination for the North Star. To prevent this from happening, Aphrodite (Alexandra Tydings), currently and illegally in possession of the diamond, casts a series of obsession spells. The results: Xena forges a manic attachment to a fish, Gabrielle falls hopelessly in love with her own reflection, and Joxer aspires to become the legendary ape-man Apis. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

With Xena (Lucy Lawless) elsewhere, Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) and Joxer (Ted Raimi) rescue a Princess (Mandie Gillette) who is en route to marry a handsome prince. Unexpectedly, the Princess falls in love with the klutzy Joxer, who, thanks to an inter-celestial tiff between Aphrodite (Alexandra Tydings) and Cupid (Karl Urban), has suddenly been transformed into a dashing hero. This metamorphosis is brought about by the ringing of a local bell -- which also takes away Joxer's new personality at the most embarrassing moments. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Like Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, the low-budget, black-and-white thriller Running Time was edited to disguise its cuts, giving the illusion that the film takes place in real time. Cult hero Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead) stars as Carl. As the film starts, Carl is getting out of prison, and he tells the warden (veteran character actor Art La Fleur) that he plans to go into the laundry business, which he learned while working in the prison. Carl's old high school football buddy and literal partner-in-crime Patrick (Jeremy Roberts) picks him up outside the gates with a hooker in the back of his van. Things take an awkward turn when the hooker turns out to be Janie (Anita Barone), whom Carl dated and unceremoniously dumped in high school. After hitting it off and patching it up with her, Carl and Patrick head straight to their planned heist -- robbing the warden's laundry business. Along the way, they pick up their safecracker, Buzz (Stan Davis), Carl's prison buddy, and their driver. Carl is dismayed to find that Patrick has hired Donny (Gordon Jennison), a junkie with poor social skills, to drive for them. Their robbery plot goes awry when Buzz finds out that the warden replaced his safe while Patrick was supposed to be casing the office. During the delay, Patrick bickers with Carl, and there's unnecessary bloodshed. To make matters worse, the payload turns out to be far less than expected, Donny is nowhere to be found, and the police are on their tail. Wounded and desperate, Carl makes plans to meet up with Patrick at Janie's apartment. Writer/director Josh Becker shot Running Time on 16 mm, in sequence, in ten days. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

In this Xena-styled spin on the spaghetti Western genre, a wounded man surrenders a parchment map leading to the lost treasure of the Sumerian Empire. Inasmuch as that treasure includes ambrosia, the substance that can turn humans into immortals, Xena (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) decide to go prospecting. In order to find the treasure, Xena is forced to team up with a pair of unsavory characters -- one of whom had been her fiancé back in the Bad Old Days. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Evil Dead director Sam Raimi produced this bizarre romance, starring his brother Theodore as Hank, a paranoid shut-in who lines the walls of his Los Angeles apartment with tin foil for protection. After an accidental phone conversation with a seemingly sweet-natured Iowa farm girl named Nancy (Deborah Foreman) who might be as deranged as he, Hank is forced to conquer his fears in order to win her heart. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

This high-octane semi-sequel to Sam Raimi's cult hit The Evil Dead has nearly eclipsed its predecessor's reputation thanks to an endless barrage of hyperkinetic camera acrobatics, rapid-fire editing and "splatstick" gore effects ... not to mention a truly goofy performance by Bruce Campbell. Nearly the entire storyline of the previous film has been re-shot and presented in a drastically condensed form within the first few minutes: rock-jawed but clueless "hero" Ash (Campbell) now visits the mountain cabin only with girlfriend Linda (played here by Denise Bixler). Upon arrival at the cabin, Ash discovers the Sumerian Book of the Dead, the ritual dagger and a reel-to-reel tape containing the professor's translations of the book's hieroglyphics. The incantations summon an unseen, growling spirit from within the woods, which bursts into the cabin and takes possession of Linda's soul. Ash is forced to decapitate her with a shovel, after which he buries her in the forest. At first dawn, Ash tries to make his escape, but is promptly set upon by the spirits, given a solid thrashing and nearly possessed himself, saved only by the arrival of sunlight. Cut off from the outside world, Ash is forced to hole up in the cabin and wait for the next demonic onslaught -- which arrives sooner than expected, led by Linda's rotting corpse. After being bitten by Linda's chatty decapitated head, Ash's hand becomes independent of his body and begins pummeling him repeatedly. The story then jumps to a local airport, where the professor's daughter Annie (Sarah Berry) and her partner Ed Getley (Richard Domeier) have just arrived with the missing pages to the Necronomicon. They employ a cranky pair of local rednecks, Jake (Dan Hicks) and Bobbie Joe (Kassie Wesley), as guides to lead them through the dense woods to the cabin ... where, at that very moment, Ash is removing his belligerent hand with a chainsaw, creating yet another ambulatory foe. Driven to the brink of insanity, Ash fires blindly at a noise outside, unaware that the new arrivals are Annie and company. Bobbie Joe is injured by the gunshot, which incurs the wrath of Jake, who knocks Ash senseless and locks him in the fruit cellar. Believing her father was murdered by Ash, Annie plays the rest of the professor's recording to learn the truth, and discovers her possessed mother was buried in the same cellar -- and not exactly resting in peace. This touches off a string of unbelievably gruesome (and hysterically funny) events, including Henrietta's transformation into a stop-motion creature (reminiscent of a Ray Harryhausen creation), Ed's sudden metamorphosis into a toothy, levitating ghoul, and Ash's climactic confrontation with the forest demon itself. The obvious glee with which Raimi and company present this cavalcade of slime-drenched monstrosities and Three Stooges pratfalls makes it impossible to take seriously as a horror film, but Evil Dead 2 is nevertheless essential viewing among connoisseurs of truly demented cinema. The film's sardonic coda opened the way for a slightly less successful sequel, Army of Darkness. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi