[5] West's early directorial work includes the 2001 short The Wicked, and feature films The Roost (2005), Trigger Man (2007), The House of the Devil (2009),[10] The Innkeepers (2011), and The Sacrament (2013).

[14] In 2012, he worked with Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett, David Bruckner, Joe Swanberg, Glenn McQuaid and the Radio Silence Productions hosts Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Chad Villella on the anthology horror film V/H/S.

[16] He has also directed an episode of Jason Blum and Eli Roth's We TV horror series South of Hell, titled "Take Life Now".

[17] West wrote, directed, produced and edited the Western film In a Valley of Violence, starring Ethan Hawke, Taissa Farmiga, and John Travolta.

[19] In late 2020, it was announced that A24 would produce a horror film titled X, which would be directed by West and will star Mia Goth, Scott Mescudi, Jenna Ortega, and Brittany Snow.

While X was in production, filming in New Zealand was temporarily halted due to the country's lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to West spending the time writing a screenplay to a prequel.