Directing horror films takes a certain kind of twisted bravery few possess and even fewer know how to use. At 29, relative newcomer Ti West is already well on his way to mastering this unique brand of chutzpah.

2005's The Roost marked West's feature length directorial debut; Trigger Man followed in 2007 and on October 30, The House of the Devil will see a limited theatrical release.

House stars Jocelin Donahue as a young babysitter who, against her better judgment, takes a job at a house where there is no actual baby but plenty of Satanic cult scariness.

"I had an idea for doing this sort of Satanic movie, and during the early eighties there was this cultural phenomenon, this Satanic Panic in the United States. So, when making a Satanic movie, that just made sense to me. If you were going to set it anywhere, that's the best time to set it. And so, as opposed to doing a throwback, it was more of a period piece," he explains.

Enhancing the "period" nature of the film is the inclusion of genre veterans Tom Noonan (Manhunter, Wolfen) and Dee Wallace (The Howling, Cujo). "I had worked with Tom on my first film The Roost, and we really got along, so he called me and said he was interested in doing the movie, which made it really simple. It was great to work with him again, and I think he's really fantastic in the movie. We have very similar sensibilities, so it's good to work with people you get along with and who understand what you're tying to accomplish," he says of Noonan.

"And with Dee, I had always been a fan, but I never had a role for her.

And we were tying to cast this small landlady role, and no one was that exciting. And then I found out that Dee was going to be at this horror convention in Baltimore, and we were in Connecticut. So she was going to be there the same time. So we gave her a call and said, 'Look, you're coming here anyway, would you come here a day early and do this movie?' And I had met her once, and we had gotten along and she wanted to do it. So she came out, and it was a pleasure to not only work with her, but she doesn't get killed, she doesn't kill anybody, she has nothing to do with the horror stuff. She's just a genuine person in the movie, which, I really like her as an actress, so it's kind of fun making horror moves but it's not the greatest feeling when you show up with actors that you like and then you're like 'Ok, we're going to spray you with blood and you're going to kill somebody.' It's more fun to just do regular, everyday stuff with them, and I'm sure they prefer that anyway."

West claims to have done only an "average amount" of research for the film. "I suppose if you didn't know anything about Satanic cults I might seem like an expert," he jokes. "I only delved in so deep." The self-education he did do revolved around the sensationalism of the 1980s. "I just kind of read into what the Satanic Panic was and the statistics of what was actually happening. It all stemmed from this McMartins child abuse case, and Geraldo really perpetuated the nationwide fear of it. And I just looked into what was really happening and what wasn't happening." West makes sure to play into the worst fears of the time and is just as grotesque with them as you might hope.

He takes his time getting to the meat (pun very much intended) of the film. "That's just my personal taste," he says of this filmmaking style. "It's not so much a conscious decision. I just like slow-paced movies. I'm not in a hurry to get out of a movie when I go see it. For me it's the buildup and it's the contrast between the mundane reality stuff in the film in comparison to the horrific elements that make it work. I think if you don't have a strong contrast it's not really effective."

West has also written and edited all of his films so far, not because he is a control freak but, he explains, "To me, writing directing and editing are all part of the same job, which is ultimately just filmmaking. Some people compartmentalize all that stuff. I've just never been one to do that. I really look up to auteur filmmakers and I really enjoy their films, so that's just kind of the rut that I fell into, and that's the only way I know how to do it."

Although West's work is, in this sense, completely his, the studio that releases the film can still lay its heavy hand upon his creative insanity. Take, for example, Cabin Fever 2, which moves the flesh-eating disease of Eli Roth's original to an unfortunate high school. West took a campy, John-Waters type approach to the project, which included heart and star wipes. "It was going to be this crazy Rock and Roll High School, Joe Dante, Paul Bartel movie, I mean, it was anarchy in a movie. I think, ultimately, everyone was really excited about that until they came face-to face with it, and then it just seemed like, 'Oh this is really weird. How do we un-weird it?'"

To make a long story short, Lionsgate removed so much of the West-ness from the film that he is attempting to disown it. "It's a bummer," he says of the situation. "[Lionsgate] had all the best intentions, it's just really personal for me, so when it became like 'Oh, we're going to change it into something totally different,' that just didn't make sense to me, and it was something I couldn't really be on board with."

While Cabin Fever 2 is scheduled to hit DVD shelves early next year -- with or without West's name in the credits -- West is getting ready to direct The Haunting in Georgia, the first film he will not also have a writing credit on. He points out that it is not so much a sequel to The Haunting in Connecticut as it is, "an attempt to franchise the name."

Additionally, he says, "I have a web series that starts on October twenty-sixth; it's called Dead and Lonely, which is a about a vampire who visits an online dating website to find her victims." Undoubtedly, West will find a strange spin to put on this, and it can be found through DateorDie.net.

It is hard to believe, but after only "three-and-a-half horror movies," Ti West has already proven himself to have the backbone making horror films requires. He takes a new risk with every project, and we can only hope he gets more dangerous with experience. After all, he notes, "No one likes to see safe stuff."