Every year, in the weeks before the St. Louis International Film Festival, I go home with a pile of 30 or 40 DVDs to peruse. I make sure that the pile includes movies with local connections, although I don’t necessarily have high hopes for them. But this year I was blown away by a movie that was filmed in Missouri about which I had heard almost nothng beforehand.

“Under Still Waters” (also known simply as “Still Waters” in some online resources) seems at first like the kind of rote, neo-noir exercise that too many first-time directors indulge in. The set-up: A St. Louis beer baron’s spoiled daughter and her architect husband are drivng in the countryside when they stop for a stranger whose motorcycle has run out of gas.

If you’ve watched enough movies, you know the rule: Don’t give a ride to a drifter who looks like one of the killers from “In Cold Blood.” Especially if you’re on your way to a hunting lodge with no telephone. And sure enough, things soon turn predictably creepy.

But trust me, “Under Still Waters” has more twists and turns than an Ozark byway.

Directed with style and assurance by first-timer Carolyn Miller, it stars Lake Bell as the wealthy hellcat, Jason Clarke as her henpecked husband and, as the intimidating stranger, the great Clifton Collins Jr.–who was indeed one of the killers in “Capote.”

It screens Friday night at 9:30 p.m. at the Tivoli. Here’s the trailer: