Ti West is a multifaceted genre filmmaker. He’s a writer, a director, an editor, a producer — a jack-of-all-cinematic-trades whose deft and constant use of film homage has led to a wealthy and illustrious physique of function films. Cherry-picked, Xeroxed, and mashed collectively like a mad scientist reanimating a corpse constructed of disparate components, West wears his influences proudly and loudly though by no means sacrificing his integrity, character, or exclusive singularity. An indie film darling whose crossover appeal and insatiable knack for horror has produced him a hot commodity inside the sector.

He’s lent his talents to episodes of MTV’s Scream: The Series, Amazon’s Them, and Fox’s Wayward Pines — a seasoned auteur with a penchant for horror whose youthful exuberance and inventive experimentation hardly ever disappoints. Something old. Something new. Something borrowed but totally original and covered in fake red blood, right here are all of Ti West’s films ranked from least fantastic to certainly sublime.

10 ‘Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever’ (2009)

Starring Rider Strong, Noah Segan and Giuseppe Andrews

There’s a raunchy John Hughes Bizarro World-like high quality to Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. Noah Segan’s John is the stereotypical geek akin to a Cameron Fry in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Anthony Michael Hall in Sixteen Candles. You can see the all-natural progression from The Roost, as the story structure is primarily the very same, just with a slightly larger price range and marginally far better actors (Segan and Giuseppe Andrews are notable standouts).

The film’s costume, set, and production styles reference horror classics like Prom Night, The Evil Dead, Carrie, and even Saturday Night Fever. But soon after in depth reshoots and re-edits by the sequel’s producers, West requested to have his name removed and replaced with the popular pseudonym Alan Smithee (an official title employed by directors to disown a film). Still, regardless of his protests, the producers denied his request for the reason that he wasn’t a member of the DGA, and his name remains on a completed project he eventually abhors.

9 ‘The Roost’ (2005)

West’s initially function film opens on fictional tv show Frightmare Theatre, a grainy black and white 1970s B-film telecast equivalent to a horror film-of-the-week style system equivalent to Elvira’s Movie Macabre. The Horror Host (played by Tom Noonan) welcomes audiences prior to introducing a college thesis-esque flick reminiscent of 90s cult horror classic Tales From the Crypt or an unaired episode of <em>Are You Afraid of The Dark? </em>deemed also adult for a Y7 audience. A 240p creature-of-the-week melodrama that is nonetheless rather impressive and oddly holds up when stacked against the director’s a lot more modern day and polished cinematic efforts. For a low-price range function of any genre–the shots and frames of cinematographer Eric Robbins are beautifully constructed with scenes composed of harsh mood lighting juxtaposed with grim shadows and stark darkness, providing the film a tangibly wicked sense of tone and spot.

Even by today’s HD requirements, the now-blurry normal-def high quality of The Roost adds a layer of accidental brilliance to a production that is undeniably attractive in a random video retailer rental sort of way. With a lean runtime of a tiny more than an hour, The Roost’s plot is thin and conceptual at greatest, but its most important appeal is in the film’s self-significant “acting class” performances that are borderline comedic. The plot follows 4 good friends marooned on a farm on their way to a wedding when they are abruptly attacked by a series of supernatural creatures. The Roost’s dated aesthetic may well be an acquired taste for casual filmgoers seeking for deep-pocketed production worth and higher-finish scares. Still, for any Ti West completionist, it is critical viewing. You can study a lot from a director’s initially function.

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8 “Second Honeymoon” from ‘V/H/S’ (2012)

Starring Joe Swanberg, Sophia Takal, and Kate Lyn Shiel

West’s unsettling chapter in horror anthology film V/H/S is a non-critical entry for some but a surefire have to-watch for any identified-footage horror aficionado. The film’s frame narrative follows a gang of criminals who break into a property to recover a mysterious video cassette for an unknown employer and get way a lot more than bargained for in this 2012 identified-footage horror classic. V/H/S/ was directed in collaboration with other indie directors like Godzilla vs. Kong’s Adam Wingard and Joe Swanberg, the creator Netflix romantic comedy drama Easy, but West’s meticulous path instantaneously sucks you in, surrounding viewers with a palpably foreboding ambiance. West gutters the CG and paranormal components in favor of an eerie stranger than fiction accurate-crime tale, grounding an otherwise messy collection of genre tropes and thrills in this sinister reinvention of the phenomenon initially originated in the 1999 psychological horror classic The Blair Witch Project.

Rather than homage distinct films, West synthesizes time-honored campfire tales and establishes a tone that exploits audience expectations with “real life” fears. The mumblecore-esque performances are extremely believable from start off to finish, but “Second Honeymoon” ends sooner than anticipated in a film that is primarily a Paranormal Activity softcore adult film, but West’s self-assured analog vision deserves a humble note of recognition. With professional use of subtle foreshadowing, “Second Honeymoon” will linger with you extended soon after the chapter ends and make you rethink your subsequent romantic getaway.

V/H/S

When a group of misfits are hired by an unknown third celebration to burglarize a desolate property and obtain a uncommon VHS tape, they find out a lot more identified footage than they bargained for.

Release Date

July 28, 2012

Cast

Calvin Reeder , Lane Hughes , Adam Wingard , Hannah Fierman , Mike Donlan , Joe Sykes

Runtime

93

Main Genre

Horror

7 ‘The Sacrament’ (2013)

Starring Joe Swanberg, Gene Jones, and Amy Seimetz

West returned to identified-footage horror in this biting satire on the abrasive investigative practices of Vice journalism against the grim reality of doomsday cults. After getting a letter from his sister, a photographer accompanied by a tiny news group travels to Eden Parish—a remote utopia whose idyllic sensibilities hide sinister motives. The Sacrament was West’s initially accurate identified-footage horror function in this Jonestown Massacre parable.

Veteran character actor Gene Jones plays Father, a Jim Jones-like religious leader whose joyous demeanor masks a pious sinisterness–and the much less you know, the far better. Like all of West’s films, audiences really should go into this specific film as cold as a morgue. Trading in the paranormal for true-life, ripped from the headlines, scares is a surprisingly refreshing decision, The Sacrament stands as one particular of the far better images in the identified-footage pantheon of horror.

6 ‘In a Valley of Violence’ (2016)

Starring Ethan Hawke, John Travolta, and Taissa Farmiga

Set in the Old West, Ethan Hawke stars as Paul, a higher plainsdrifter traveling to Mexico who wanders into the town of Denton and runs afoul of the wicked riff-raff that plague the forgotten mining town. A film that blurs the murderous vengeance of the John Wick franchise with the quirky melodrama of a pulpy Western novelette, Red Dead Redemption and the films of Quentin Tarantino — absurdist, campy, and darkly comedic, In a Valley of Violence is a loving homage to the grim Italo-Westerns of the 60s and 70s.

Shot on 35mm and developed in conjunction with Jason Blum’s Blumhouse and Universal Pictures, West wrote the component with Hawke in thoughts soon after seeing him in a New York stage production of Macbeth. Beautiful acting and obtusely intriguing – In a Valley of Violence is a refreshing departure from a director who spent most of his profession directing violently nostalgic horror homages. Satisfying, weird, and assuredly acquired — In a Valley of Violence mines effectively-worn cowhide boots of the western genre and spins into a timeless yarn that is equal components gonzo and pathos.

In a Valley of Violence

Release Date

October 21, 2016

Director

Ti West

Runtime

104

Main Genre

Western

Writers

Ti West

Studio

Focus World

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5 ‘Trigger Man (2007)

Starring Ray Sullivan, Reggie Cunningham, and Sean Reid

Made more than seven days, comprised of minimal dialogue, and costing roughly $10,000, West’s second function film was a concerted push into a new and uncharted homage territory. A backwoods psychological thriller likened to The Blair Witch Project meets The Deer Hunter or Deliverance, in this brutal survival horror image from 2007. Relentless, claustrophobic, and unrelenting, Trigger Man’s low-price range shaky-cam aesthetic adds a nuanced layer of realism hardly ever noticed in modern day blockbuster thrillers. Still, like The Roost, its normal-def presentation may well hinder the casual moviegoer from finishing.

The film’s plot follows 3 good friends on a deer hunting trip in Delaware when a mysterious sniper begins selecting them off, ending in an explosively taught third-individual shooter-esque, Duel-like climax. Like an alien-much less Predator, Trigger Man was West’s initially step into a a lot more self-assured thematic path. Though simplistic, the plot rivals some of West’s a lot more complicated and compelling narratives to date. Roughly beneath an hour and thirty minutes, West’s second prominent function begins as a mundane character study that abruptly devolves into a bloodcurdling tale of survival and paranoia. It’s a faithful prototype for the identified-footage horror and genre-bending methods that would continue to comply with the director in subsequent films.

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4 ‘The Innkeepers’ (2011)

Starring Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, and Kelly McGillis

Sarah Paulson (who famously replaced Kimberly J. Brown in the maligned Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown 4: Return to Halloweentown) stars as Charlie, an asthmatic who spends her days and nights browsing for paranormal activity with her companion in crime and fellow ghost hunting enthusiasts Luke (Pat Healy), but like all of Ti West’s characters, they get way a lot more than bargained. Set in present day New England, the film follows two lowly workers of the after lavish Yankee Pedlar Inn, but when they determine to investigate stories of ghost sightings they accidentally awaken an evil presence from beyond the grave.

A frighteningly slow-moving ghost story that will reward patient viewers with its terrifying second half, The Innkeepers is a modern day revival of the haunted hotel horror subgenre that burns unhurriedly and relentlessly.The Innkeepers hits all the nostalgic beats of 80s-era Amblin classic Poltergeist with the modern day bite of James Wan’s The Conjuring. Some may well anguish beneath its laborious runtime or lack of constant scares, but keen-eyed viewers who stick with it will reap the rewards of its worry-inducing climax.

3 The House of the Devil (2009)

Starring Jocelin Donahue, Greta Gerwig, and Tom Noonan

In the vein of John Carpenter’s Halloween, The Amityville Horror (1979), and When a Stranger Calls (1979), and brimming with adequate worry to shroud a fog-filled haunted property. West’s third function, The House of the Devil is a spooky and nostalgic homage to the slasher and haunted property subgenres of the 70s and 80s. A vital darling that failed at the box workplace but has given that earned its preserve amongst the most effectively-regarded horror films of the final two decades.

Set in 1980 for the duration of the “satanic panic,” the film follows Jocelin Donahue’s broke college student Samantha Hughes who’s hired as a babysitter at an isolated residence on the outskirts of town, but quickly realizes that her life is in grave danger. West shot The House of the Devil totally on 16mm film to mimic the decade, providing the image its retro grain and fuzzy glow. Eliot Rockett’s cinematography employs numerous of the approaches and methods utilized by the directors of the time, which includes camera zooms (rather of dolly shots) and an opening credit sequence that utilizes a bold yellow font and accompanying freeze-frame. A crowning achievement in period-piece production design and style and film homage in this creepy occult masterpiece from 2009, a production that secured the indie director as a cinematic voice on the rise and worthy of the audience’s interest.

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The House of the Devil

In The House of the Devil, a money-strapped college student requires a babysitting job at a remote mansion, only to find out there is no youngster to care for—just an eerie, empty property. As the evening unfolds, she finds herself entangled in a horrifying cult ritual that thrusts her into a fight for survival, uncovering sinister secrets hidden inside the home’s walls.

Release Date

October 30, 2009

Director

Ti West

Runtime

95 Minutes

Main Genre

Horror

Writers

Ti West

Studio

Magnet Releasing

Tagline

Talk on the telephone. Finish your homework. Watch Television. Die.

2 ‘Pearl’ (2023)

Starring Mia Goth, David Corenswet, and Tandi Wright

A horror film, technically even a slasher film, but most of all a damn fantastic, effectively-acted drama (so fantastic Martin Scorsese famously sang its praises), Pearl is as great a successor to X as it was an unexpected one particular. The WWI-era prequel could have taken an straightforward route and nonetheless turned out effectively adequate, but West (it really is secure to just get in touch with him an auteur at this point, any sort of praise is on the table) rather gave us an entertaining, humanistic descent into the violence of the thoughts, the aesthetics surgically homaging classic Hollywood in the way X homaged ’70s grindhouse.

Goth’s efficiency (effectively, her dual efficiency) in X had everybody speaking what she’s completed right here exceeded all expectations. Ti West has extended trusted the energy of fantastic acting to enable carry a film Goth’s infamous extended take in act 3 may well be the higher point of his complete canon so far. Simply place, Pearl is almost everything Scorsese stated it was: pure cinema. It’s edgy, dazzling, inspired (often in a way that is explicitly paying tribute to fantastic art of the previous) craftsmanship that is all in service of saying anything about the human situation. Cinema.

Pearl

In 1918, a young lady on the brink of madness pursues stardom in a desperate try to escape the drudgery, isolation, and lovelessness of life on her parents’ farm.

Director

Ti West

Cast

Mia Goth , David Corenswet , Tandi Wright , Matthew Sunderland

Runtime

103 minutes

1 ‘X’ (2022)

Starring Mia Goth, Jenna Ortega and Brittany Snow

West’s greatest film seems like a rote horror homage, but oddly it is his most profound, intricately appointed, and expertly crafted operate to date. A image that utilizes De Palma-esque split-screens and evokes the brutal violence of TheTexas Chainsaw Massacre, X is an ingeniously funny and gruesome commentary on the counter-culture, auteur-driven cinema of the 1970s. West flips the script on classic horror genre tropes, specifically its suggestions on female sexuality, usually noticed as anything to be condemned or punishable by death, is eradicated in favor of a modern day, sex-good, feminist re-imagining of the outdated traditionalism at the center of most classic horror productions.

Beautifully shot and eerily attractive, West forces us to recontextualize the damaging gender stereotypes usually depicted in horror films but in glorious bloody style. X is the culmination of almost two decades worth of really hard operate from West, who has given that ripened into a confident director whose professional command of film homage does not outshine his voice. The initially in a confirmed trilogy from producer A24, X’s comply with-up, Pearl was filmed back-to-back in secret, and continued to cement Ti West as a trustworthy voice and worthy successor to the horror throne (Goth’s Maxine Minx returns this summer season in MaXXXine). Witty, provocative, and confidently demented, X is his most outstanding cinematic achievement to date, with a mainstream crossover appeal that’ll certainly amplify his profession for decades to come.

X (2022)

In 1979, a group of young filmmakers set out to make an adult film in rural Texas, but when their reclusive, elderly hosts catch them in the act, the cast uncover themselves fighting for their lives.

Release Date

March 18, 2022

Director

Ti West

Runtime

105 minutes

Writers

Ti West

Studio

A24