Catherine Keener (Capote) and Ellen Page (Hard Candy) are set to star in "The Basement", according to Production Weekly.

The independent thriller will be directed by Tommy O'Haver (Ella Enchanted) and is based largely on actual court transcripts, of the shocking true story of a murder that stunned the nation back in the mid 1960s. O'Haver and Irene Turner have written the screenplay, which follows Gertrude Baniszewski (Keener), a seemingly ordinary housewife and the mother of seven, imprisons beautiful teenager Sylvia Likens, (Page) who has been left in her charge, in the basement of her Indiana home -- a setting for subterranean impulses of the most savage and sadistic nature.

The movie is set to begin filming by the end of May in Los Angeles.