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A lesbian spin on the legendary Lizzie Borden murder case is nothing new — Ed McBain posited the notion in a 1984 novel — but the stylish and haunting “Lizzie” paints a provocative portrait of a woman driven by passions and left with few options in a society that gave her little agency.

In “Lizzie,” we come to know Borden’s inner turmoil, not only by her periodic “spells” but also in the way that the camera captures a bewitching Chloë Sevigny. She’s often off-center in the frame, or reflected in mirrors, or out of focus in the foreground as she imagines what’s happening far behind her.

Screenwriter Bryce Kass (“Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs”) and director Craig William Macneill (2015’s “The Boy”), like everyone else who has tackled this story, are left to their own conjectures and theories as to the how and the why behind the murder of Borden’s father and stepmother,...

Lizzie Borden took an axe / And gave her mother forty whacks / When she saw what she had done / She gave her father forty-one.

The story of Lizzie Borden and the brutal murder of her father and stepmother has long been one of early America’s signature — and very bloody — folk tales, and one that has inspired scads of adaptations for both the stage and screen, including a 1965 opera and a recent Lifetime made-for-tv movie and its subsequent limited series sequel, both starring Christina Ricci as the accused murderer.

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But popular culture isn’t done with Lizzie yet, and a new film from “The Boy” director Craig William Macneill and newbie screenwriter Bryce Kass (he previously penned the 2014 TV movie “Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs”) looks to revisit the enduring tale, with a brand new twist.

Lifetime loves a true-crime saga, particularly those stories about women and children in peril, and that goes double for that danger involving sexual predation. Throw in a famous-but-not-that-famous person to play the lead, and voilà. Last night's offering was Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs, starring Scandal's Tony Goldwyn as the polygamous leader of the Flds Church and convicted child rapist. The movie itself is crummy, even by Lifetime standards, and Goldwyn's almost Nicolas Cage–esque performance deserves its own special tribute. In life, Jeffs is a monster who used his position as a religious leader to assault, manipulate, and abuse people. In Lifetime, he's — well, see for yourself.

Fitz fans, brace yourselves: Tony Goldwyn, aka President Fitzgerald Grant on ABC's hit drama Scandal, is taking on the role of another troubled, charismatic leader — but this one won't be making anybody swoon. In the new Lifetime biopic Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs (airing Saturday at 8/7c), Goldwyn portrays the fundamentalist Mormon church head whose crimes against his own flock landed him in the headlines — and on the FBI's Most Wanted list.

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