I Know Who Killed Me (2007) TriStar/Horror-Thriller RT: 106 minutes Rated R (graphic bloody violence and gore, torture, language, sexuality, nudity) Director: Chris Sivertson Screenplay: Jeff Hammond Music: Joel McNeely Cinematography: John R. Leonetti Release date: July 27, 2007 (US) Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, Spencer Garrett, Kenya Moore, Gregory Itzin, Thomas Tofel, Bonnie Aarons, Michael Esparza, Donovan Scott, Paula Marshall, Brian McNamara. Box Office: $7.2M (US)/$9.6M (World)
Rating: *
Or as I like to call it, I Know What Killed Lindsay Lohan’s Career.
It’s true I Know Who Killed Me (LOVE that title!) is a stinker. Fortunately, it’s a hilariously bad stinker that’s entertaining for reasons not intended by director Chris Sivertson (All Cheerleaders Die). Lohan (The Parent Trap) plays a dual role in this gory thriller about the kidnapping of a college student by a sadistic creep. When she’s found about three weeks later (minus a few limbs), she claims to be somebody else. That somebody else is a stripper who does nasty things with customers’ cigarettes.
I’ll discuss the plot in more detail in a bit even though no written description could ever do it justice. It’s so ludicrous you have to see it for yourself. Not that audiences bothered to do so in the two weeks I Know Who Killed Me played in theaters. The writing on the wall was there from the start. You could tell how bad it would be by the trailer. The studio declined to screen it in advance for critics, NEVER a good sign. When they did see it, they panned it mercilessly. As a suspense-thriller, I Know Who Killed Me sucks. It does, however, succeed as an unintentional comedy. It’s laughably bad.
Now for the plot, but while you read it, let’s play a game. You tell me which role better suits Lohan given her trainwreck of a life off-screen. Aubrey Fleming, aspiring writer and gifted pianist, lives in upscale New Salem with her parents, Daniel (McDonough, Captain America) and Susan (Ormond, Legends of the Fall). She has a devoted jock boyfriend, Jerrod (Geraghty, Chicago PD). You can tell she’s a serious type because she wears glasses when she reads her short stories to her classmates. Oh yeah, she’s also a virgin. I’ll wait until the laughter dies down.
One night after a big football game, Aubrey disappears, the victim of a serial killer who’s been terrorizing the area. He/she kidnaps his young female victims and keeps them for a while, torturing them by cutting off limbs before dumping their bodies. Aubrey miraculously survives her ordeal, but when questioned by her parents and law enforcement agents, she claims she’s not Aubrey. She insists she’s Dakota Moss, a down on her luck stripper whose drug addict mother recently died of an overdose. You can tell she’s sleazy because she smokes, swears up a blue storm and screws Jerrod when he stops by for visit. Okay, which role do you think Lohan is more believable in? I’ll tell you the right answer in a bit.
Aubrey/Dakota, sporting a prosthetic hand and leg, goes home with the Flemings hoping she will regain her memory if that is indeed the problem. This is where I Know Who Killed Me really goes off the rails. I have no intention of divulging the ending, but I will say that the writer throws a few different theories against the wall to see which one sticks. What is going on with Aubrey/Dakota? Is it PTSD-related amnesia? Is she so traumatized that she adapts the persona of a character in one of her short stories? Maybe she has a twin sister from whom she was separated at birth? At one point, she researches “stigmata twins” on the Internet. I tried Googling it, but couldn’t find anything. In any event, when we finally do find out what’s going on, it’s told in a manner equivalent to simply saying, “Yeah, that happened.” Not that you won’t have figured it out long before the makers decide to tell.
The other mystery in I Know Who Killed Me is the identity of the killer. You won’t have any trouble figuring that out either if you know something about how thrillers are constructed. In such movies, no scene or character is superfluous. Early on, Aubrey interacts with somebody about something that doesn’t come up again. We never see this person again either. Given the nature of thrillers, it’s a pretty safe bet the subject and character will reappear in the climax. More than that, it’s inevitable. But the makers don’t want to make it too easy for the viewer. For a movie that favors an electric blue color motif it sure has a lot of red herrings, the most obvious being McDonough, an actor (with piercing blue eyes) who’s played many a villain. You can eliminate him right away.
No matter how hard it tries, I Know Who Killed Me fails to generate any real suspense. However, it would be inaccurate to call it predictable. While it’s fairly easy to guess the outcome, it’s not so easy guessing what ridiculous thing will happen next. This movie gets sillier as it goes along. It’s filled to the top with contrivances and plot holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Near the end, Aubrey/Dakota finds a clue that instantly reveals the identity of the killer. How the hell did the local police and FBI miss it? It was right there in the open. If they bothered to look into the victims’ mutual acquaintances, they would have nabbed him/her. This is a very incompetently written movie.
The acting is atrocious. Lohan, because of her dual role, is twice as bad as the rest of the cast. The answer to my earlier question is that she’s equally unbelievable in both roles. She’s the most unconvincing virgin in movies since Madonna in Shanghai Surprise (1986). As a stripper, Lohan makes Elizabeth Berkley (Showgirls) look like a goddess. She’s neither sexy nor particularly attractive. She’s just sleazy. Her pole routines are dull. Her sex scene with Geraghty is just creepy. Amputee sex, isn’t that a porn category? Ormond is wasted as Aubrey’s mother. She gets little more to do than look at her “daughter” with great concern and remind her she lives in a non-smoking house. McDonough is wooden as the father who may or may not be keeping a secret. Geraghty is terrible as the boyfriend.
Early on, it’s abundantly clear Sivertson is emulating Brian De Palma (Body Double) with all the plot twists and turns making him, I guess, a Hitchcock imitator once removed. He also adds a bit of a weird David Lynch vibe to the weird, ridiculous proceedings. I will give I Know Who Killed Me points for its visual style. It resembles an electric blue-hued Lynch-noir nightmare. It would have been one thing if it was just a bad De Palma/Lynch knock-off, but Sivertson saw fit to throw in a bit of torture porn action. We watch as the killer cruelly rips the flesh from Lohan’s hand. We watch as Lohan attempts to sew a finger back on. If the look of the movie is weird, the sound is weirder. The soundtrack feels disconnected from the action in the movie.
No two ways about it, I Know Who Killed Me is a colossally bad movie. It swept the Razzies that year, taking home eight awards. Lohan won two Worst Actress awards. This movie is like an episode of The Patty Duke Show set at a certain Hostel. But you gotta LOVE that title though. It’s an actual line of dialogue in the movie. It just rolls off the tongue and hits the funny bone.
Okay, one more joke about the title. Call it I Know Who Killed Me Last Summer. No matter what you call it, it’s a total bad movie guilty pleasure.
