Babadook director Jennifer Kent’s new project is a “lesbian romance murder tragedy”

Not everyone loved it as much as we did, but here at The A.V. Club we’ve been anxiously waiting to see what Jennifer Kent, director of last year’s horror sleeper hit The Babadook, is going to do next. According to Deadline, the director’s second film will be Alice + Freda Forever, based on a nonfiction tale of murder and forbidden lesbian love in Victorian Memphis by author Alexis Coe. Coe’s book is the true story of 19-year-old Alice Mitchell, who publicly slashed her 17-year old lover Freda Ward’s throat after their parents thwarted their plan for Alice to disguise herself as a man so she and Freda could be married. Mitchell’s case was a media sensation when she went to trial in 1892; a jury eventually declared her insane and sent her to an asylum, where she died in 1898.

No stars or release date have been set for the film, but the story seems like a good fit for Kent, whose debut film also touched on themes of insanity and the desire to hurt the ones you love. Kent is set to write the script for Alice + Freda Forever as well as direct.