Kristen Stewart and Chloe Sevigny Will Star in a Movie About Lizzie Borden

Not to be confused with the Lifetime Original movie about Lizzie Borden starring Christina Ricci (or the baffling follow-up miniseries), a new untitled thriller about the notorious axe-wielding parent-killer is in the works and has given us two very good reasons to see it: Kristen Stewart and frequent American Horror Story star Chloe Sevigny — don’t get any ideas, Ryan Murphy.

THR reports that Stewart and Sevigny have signed on to star in the untitled upcoming film, being described as a “psychological thriller about the grisly murders of the Borden family.” The film is being directed by Pieter Van Hees, who previously directed the 2014 French thriller Waste Land and the 2008 Belgian drama Left Bank (starring Matthias Schoenaerts). Bryce Kass, writer of the 2014 TV movie Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs, penned the screenplay for the Borden project.

Sevigny will play the role of Borden, an eccentric and homely young woman who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1892. Borden was ultimately acquitted following her trial and chose to continue living in Fall River even though she was largely ostracized from the community, with most residents believing Borden was guilty despite the trial’s outcome.

Stewart will play the Borden family’s live-in maid, Bridget Sullivan, who was likely present when the murders were committed and testified at Lizzie Borden’s trial. The story of Borden and the mysterious axe murders continues to attract the morbidly curious and even inspired a childhood rhyme (“Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks…”).

Sevigny is currently appearing on American Horror Story: Hotel and was previously attached to play Borden in an HBO film that never came to fruition. Stewart recently appeared in American Ultra and Equals, and is starring in upcoming films from Woody Allen and Ang Lee.