Winkless directed the short movie Foster's Release in 1971, featured at the Edinburgh Film Festival, L.A. Filmex, and the Chicago Film Festival, among others.
Winkless worked on the original Gone in 60 Seconds (1974), which featured a 40-minute car chase. Winkless worked as an editor and then writer and director when the floundering story needed refinement.
Winkless got his first writing credit on The Howling (1981). Winkless would later direct the similarly themed The Nest (1988),[3] featuring genetically altered cockroaches rather than werewolves.
Winkless' extensive body of work includes Bloodfist (1989), Corporate Affairs (1990) and The Berlin Conspiracy (1992). Given his success with the fighting film Bloodfist, the biggest hit for Roger Corman's New Horizons company, Winkless returned to the genre on the 1992 feature Rage and Honor.
His 2003 film Fire Over Afghanistan was shot on a prosumer digital camera, the Sony PD-150, and was a precursor to the all digital world to come. He next directed Nightmare City (2007), then returned to digital filming on Twice As Dead (2009).
In 2013, Winkless expanded on his usual genre and directed the family drama Heart of Dance (2013), in which a young woman become increasingly tangled in the obsessive world of professional dance following the death of her older sister.[4]
Winkless continues to carve out new territory for himself as the author of the book The Assassin's Apprentice.
Personal life
Winkless is married to screenwriter Raly Radouloff with whom he has a daughter, Lara Terry Winkless (b. 1998), they are based in Vancouver, BC with residences in California and Europe.