The Best of the Best: Five Essential Ti West Movies

An early favorite of mine in West's filmography, The House of the Devil is more than just a pastiche of the satanic panic movies of the 70s like Satan's School for Girls. Featuring an early role for Greta Gerwig and an excellent performance from Jocelin Donahue, the film has some real shocks in store for the first-time viewer. Seriously, you won't see what happens coming. The cast really is great, and West did a great job of making a thrilling story out of one college student's bad experience in the dorms of a small-town college. The House of the Devil stars Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, A. J. Bowen, and Dee Wallace and features the cinematography of Eliot Rockett, who is responsible for the cinematography in West's most recent films. Read more: Review: The House of the Devil.

The Sacrament is a genuinely terrifying film and different from every other film in West's filmography. It's a modern retelling of the People's Temple Jonestown tragedy but with a Vice News crew trying to get the story about a charismatic, Jim Jones-like preacher. Ti West wrote it and starred Joe Swanberg, AJ Bowen, Kentucker Audley, Amy Seimetz, and Gene Jones in the star turn as the Jones surrogate in the story. Updating the story to the present day grabs the audience and won't let them go, and knowing that the story is based on fact makes it all the more creepy.

Ti West also directed a segment in the first movie in the found footage series V/H/S series. It's called Second Honeymoon and, at first, seems to be a chronicle of a married couple on the road doing mundane things. However, a stranger enters their hotel room, filming them while they sleep. As it happens, things are not as they seem, and there is a shocker of an ending that turns in a direction you will not see coming.

The Innkeepers is set at the Yankee Pedlar Inn, a real-life Connecticut hotel known for alleged paranormal activity. It stars Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, and Kelly McGillis. Paxton (Claire) and Healy (Lucas) are employees who are also ghost hunters who want to try and find proof of the ghosts in the hotel. Kelly McGillis plays Leanne Rease-Jones, a former actress who has become a spiritualist. Rease-Jones warns the two to stay out of the basement as they continue exploring the former guest named Madeline O'Malley. Claire doesn't heed Rease-Jones' warning and delves into the hotel's troubling history. Read more: Q&A: Checking In With Ti West On The Innkeepers.

West's passionate prequel to X is Pearl, which tells the story of Pearl, the elderly murderer from X. In Pearl, you see a very fragile and emotionally deprived young woman who desperately wants to be loved. Pearl is married to a soldier who is fighting in the war, feels neglected by her parents and absent husband, and decides that the way to get the love she craves is to become a star. She cannot accept being rejected in any way and reacts with homicidal rage when anyone refuses to give her what she wants. Mia Goth's tender performance is mesmerizing even while you view the horrific things that Pearl does.