The Evil Dead Crew Veteran Josh Becker, Filmmaker and Writer, Dies
Josh Becker, the filmmaker and writer who collaborated with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell and helped launch The Evil Dead, has passed away.
This one hurts. Josh Becker — filmmaker, writer, and an early, hands-on member of the original Evil Dead crew — has died at 67. Friends and family shared the news on social media, and by all accounts it was sudden. He had just updated his newsletter on December 3 and was actively planning his next movie two days before he passed.
Part of the Michigan gang that built Evil Dead
Becker came up in Michigan alongside Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel, Timothy Patrick Quill, and Bruce Campbell, making Super 8 shorts before any of them had careers. He acted in some of Raimi's early films, wrote and directed a bunch of his own, and then jumped into Raimi's feature debut The Evil Dead as a production assistant and sound recordist. When most of the cast and crew bailed during the grind of that shoot, Becker picked up the lighting duties too. And here is a great piece of trivia: he conceived and set up the movie's unforgettable final shot. He also kept a journal during the production, which is how granular his involvement was.
From Stryker's War to his debut feature
Right after principal photography wrapped on The Evil Dead, Becker teamed with Campbell on the short film Stryker's War — a proof-of-concept for Becker's first feature, the 1985 cult actioner Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except. He wrote it with Spiegel, Campbell, and Sheldon Lettich (who later became a frequent Jean-Claude Van Damme collaborator), and cast Sam Raimi as the unhinged cult leader. Campbell was supposed to star as the hero, but because the project was non-union, that did not happen.
'Marines vs. the Manson Family'
That was the movie's calling-card pitch. Around 2010, Becker and Campbell were talking about a remake with Campbell finally in the lead, but it never got off the ground.
The work
Before diving deeper into directing, Becker and Spiegel did uncredited writing on William Lustig's action thriller Hit List. From there, Becker's directing career spanned scrappy indies, cult TV, and genre oddities:
- Lunatics: A Love Story, a dark comedy starring Ted Raimi, Deborah Foreman, and Bruce Campbell
- Hercules: The Legendary Journeys TV movie Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur
- Running Time, a crime thriller headlined by Campbell and staged to play like one unbroken take
- If I Had a Hammer, a self-distributed indie drama
- Episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess and Campbell's Jack of All Trades
- Alien Apocalypse, a sci-fi adventure with Campbell
- Harpies, another sci-fi adventure
- Spine Chillers, a web series he created and directed episodes for
- Morning, Noon & Night, a comedy
- Warpath, a Western featuring Ted Raimi as a character literally named Dimwit
He wrote books too
Becker also published a shelf's worth of writing: The Complete Guide to Low-Budget Feature Filmmaking, Rushes, Going Hollywood, Hitler in the Madhouse, and The Gospel According to Judas.
A bright future for the franchise, a rough stretch for the family
The Evil Dead machine is very much alive — there are two new movies in the pipeline, with one aiming for 2026. But the last few years have been brutal for the old guard: Dan Hicks (Jake in Evil Dead II) passed in 2020, Timothy Patrick Quill (the Blacksmith in Army of Darkness) in 2021, and Evil Dead II co-writer Scott Spiegel only a few months ago. Now Becker.
Josh Becker was a resourceful, creative force who helped shape one of horror's most enduring franchises and carved out his own body of work along the way. Condolences to his family, friends, collaborators, and fans.