“Within,” a spooky thriller in the vein of “The Sixth Sense” debuts on the Lifetime cable channel this Saturday with a couple of memorable performances from its two adolescent female leads.

But the movie is also a significant coming out party for their big sister, filmmaker Hanelle Culpepper, who shows she is a Hollywood talent to watch with her debut feature as director and producer.

The film stars Mia Ford as sweet but troubled Rachel Weiss, a young girl who, after witnessing the brutal murder of her mother, moves with her workaholic father to a small town outside of Los Angeles.

There she makes fast friends with a classmate, Michelle Lowe (Sammi Hanratty), who turns out to be not as sweet as she seems and will expose Rachel’s gift — or curse — for being able to see the evil that lurks within human beings.

Working from a screenplay by Rebecca Sonnenshine, Culpepper displays a sure-handed and inventive eye in crafting a surprisingly effective chiller that keeps you guessing to the end.

And Culpepper, who developed a passion for storytelling as a child in Alabama and graduated from the master’s program at the USC Annenberg School of Communications in the early 1980s, especially loved the script.

“I was immediately drawn to the lead character because she feels a little out of place where she is and I sort of felt that way growing up,” she said.

“The opportunity came about after I made a short in 2003 called ‘A Single Rose’ in 2003 that won a number of awards. That got me into a touring campus at the Berlin Film Festival, which brings over artists, writers, directors, composers, producers … I met Rebecca, who just happened to live in L.A., and told her I was looking for a low-budget script for my first feature. She pitched me a number of ideas, including ‘Within.’”

After optioning the script, Culpepper shopped it to producers and found a home at L.A.-based Filmmakers Alliance, an artist’s cooperative dedicated to the advancement of true independent filmmaking through community action.

The FA subsequently partnered with Bigfoot Entertainment, a production company based in the Phillipines, which financed the project and sold it to Lifetime.

“Lifetime is going a little more edgy with their content and so we hope it works really for them,” she added.

Culpepper, who fought her way up the ranks and worked for the likes of Neal Israel (“Bachelor Party”) and Callie Khouri (“Thelma & Louise,” “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”), said directing the feature was akin to “an adrenaline rush.”

“It was amazing … that’s such a trite and stupid word, but it’s the only way to explain it,” she said. “It’s exhausting … the days are so long. You get up early, shoot all day, come home and try to watch your dailies and work on your shot lists [for tomorrow]. But … oh my god.. I’m making this movie.

“I loved coming onto the set, seeing the trucks set up and people there just to help bring your vision to the screen. I can’t see myself doing anything else.”

And with Hollywood finally losing its veneer of male superiority following Kathryn Bigelow’s directing Oscar for “The Hurt Locker,” Culpepper is ready to take on the gender and color bars that still permeate in the industry.

“I started off just having this dream to direct, but in following the likes of Kasi Lemmons [“Eve’s Bayou”], I do see that I am kinda leaving a little sub trail of African-American directors who are doing mainstream concepts like supernatural or horror films,” said Culpepper.

“Not that many Black directors are doing mainstream films period. [But] that’s more reflective of the industry than us. It’s just a matter of the fact that our names don’t come into their minds when they are thinking who can direct these projects.”