Ti West

Ti West is an American filmmaker whose work includes the horror films *The House of the Devil*, *X*, *Pearl*, and *MaXXXine*. He began directing features with *The Roost* (2005), in which travelers on their way to a wedding encounter a threat at an isolated farm. He followed it with *Trigger Man* (2007), a thriller about friends on a hunting trip. West also directed *Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever* (2009), though he publicly distanced himself from the released version after disputes over the editing.

*The House of the Devil* (2009) became one of his best-known early films. Set in the 1980s, it follows college student Samantha Hughes, played by Jocelin Donahue, as she takes a babysitting job at a remote house on the night of a lunar eclipse. West used period-appropriate costumes, music, and filmmaking techniques to make the film resemble a horror release from its setting. In *The Innkeepers* (2011), Sara Paxton and Pat Healy play employees investigating reports of a haunting during the final days of a hotel’s operation. The film was shot at the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Connecticut, the real hotel that provides its setting.

West’s *The Sacrament* (2013) takes a different approach, presenting a visit to an isolated religious community through the footage of journalists. Its story draws on the 1978 Jonestown massacre. He then directed the western *In a Valley of Violence* (2016), starring Ethan Hawke as a drifter whose encounter with a town’s residents turns deadly. West has also directed for television and contributed the segment “Second Honeymoon” to the 2012 horror anthology *V/H/S*.

West returned to feature-film horror with *X* (2022). Set in rural Texas in 1979, it follows a crew renting a farm to shoot an adult film. Mia Goth plays both aspiring performer Maxine Minx and Pearl, one of the farm’s elderly owners. West and Goth subsequently co-wrote *Pearl* (2022), a prequel set in 1918 that follows the younger Pearl’s ambitions while she lives with her parents on their farm. The two films were produced back-to-back in New Zealand.

The trilogy concludes with *MaXXXine* (2024), which moves Maxine’s story to 1980s Los Angeles as she pursues a career in mainstream film. Goth reprises the title role. Across the three movies, West shifts from a 1970s-style slasher to a period character study and then to a Hollywood-set thriller, while keeping the histories of Pearl and Maxine connected.