He's quite comfortable when the mood turns dark

In addition to HBO's "True Blood," Alan Ball (above) has also directed the big screen feature "Towelhead." (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

There's an urge to label Alan Ball as some kind of poet laureate of suburban malaise. But Ball, writer of the Oscar-winning "American Beauty" and creator of the HBO series "Six Feet Under," says the cul-de-sac and its sheen of genteel, acceptable behavior is just a nice setting to get at his real obsession: the underbelly of American life.

"I'm interested in what's under the carpet in that room where everybody's sitting around with their tea and behaving," Ball said during a recent visit to Boston.

His latest television creation is "True Blood," premiering Sunday on HBO, a vampire drama based on books by Charlaine Harris. His new film, "Towelhead," opens locally Sept. 19.

"I like to explore the darker, messier parts of the human psyche, and how people incorporate those into their lives, either in healthy or unhealthy ways," Ball says.

With "Towelhead," Ball makes a deep descent into the cavern of adolescence. This most recent film is the story of a 13-year-old girl named Jasira, who relocates to suburban Houston during the first Gulf War to live with her Lebanese father. Adapted from Alicia Erian's 2005 novel of the same name, "Towelhead" is less a coming-of-age film than a movie that confronts the reality of coming of age in American society with what Ball calls our need to "sanitize and make nice."

From an opening scene involving pubic hair, Jasira - charmingly underplayed by Summer Bishil - barrels through her first encounters with pornography, puberty, jingoism, racism, and sexual abuse. By the time the end credits role, it feels as if everything we consider taboo in this country is placed inside a wet paper bag that finally bursts onto the floor.

"As a culture we spend so much time trying to remove the messiness of life, especially the sexuality of women in general, and young girls in particular. It still surprises me the response that the shot of the tampon gets," he said, referring to a scene where Jasira tries (unsuccessfully) to flush a used one. "So many people are shocked by that, but that's just biology. You could have a movie where people are tortured and I don't think you'd get quite that visceral response, and to me that seems a little crazy."

A 51-year-old with a laid-back way of being the smartest guy in the room, Ball said the major themes of his work can be traced to his childhood in Georgia. "My family was really repressed. Everybody was really polite but there was this weird undercurrent of rage sort of simmering under the surface. . . . As a kid, I was always snooping into that."

Then, when Ball was 13, his sister died, blowing the illusion of a polite, happy family out the window.

"After that I was looking for anything that was authentic or true or real because both of my parents had disappeared so far deep down inside of themselves," he said. "My mom turned to religion and my dad turned to alcohol. I was really left alone, really floundering. And I think that's what made me curious about people in trouble. It's the stories about the people who make the wrong decision that are really fascinating to me."

Ball said he was attracted to Erian's novel because the Jasira character goes through so much and hurts so much inside that with her minor salvation at the film's end, she becomes something of an archetypal, Joseph Campbell-esque hero. "She sees those [pornographic] magazines [near the beginning of the film], and it's a bit of a call to adventure," he said. "She descends into a kind of underworld and then she comes back into the light at the end."

While "Towelhead," which is being distributed by Warner Independent, is more of an art house film - "I think it's for people who like work that will make them feel without telling them what they're supposed to feel," Ball said - "True Blood" marks his return to television. The new show posits a world where the availability of synthetic blood has allowed vampires to "come out of the coffin" and, with their nutritional needs satisfied, demand the same rights as humans.

The central story will focus on a telepathic Louisiana waitress, played by Anna Paquin, who is tormented by her ability to hear other people's thoughts until she meets a handsome vampire and, unable to read his thoughts, is able to relax for the first time.

A television show about vampires is, Ball acknowledges, a big departure for him. He says he knew very little about the genre and its mythology before getting involved, and knew he would be taking on a very devout, knowledgeable fan base (2,500 people showed up for a panel about the show at ComicCon).

"It's the first time I've done something that felt so popcorn. It's real genre filmmaking. And you know what," he said, as his face took on a look of surprise, as if he couldn't believe he was about to say this about his own work, "it's really a lot of fun."