I Know Who Killed Me

Director: Chris Sivertson (2007)

Stars: Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonaugh, Crab Man

Find it: IMDB

In the wake of Lindsay Lohan's brushes with the law, drug troubles and sweeping Razzie wins, some say that her 2007 piece I Know Who Killed Me might be too easy target for ridicule. Those same people underestimate how shockingly bad I Know Who Killed Me is, and how much the Joel of 2007 loved mocking terrible movies. Nevertheless, either despite or because of its horrible reputation, I Know Who Killed Me remains one of my favourites, alongside Nicolas Cage's infamous remake of The Wicker Man. Hey, you have The Room, this is my thing.

If you like, the film acts as a quasi-sequel to Lohan's breakthrough hit, The Parent Trap. Here, the twins have become separated and have no awareness of each other's existence. Look out for Freaky Friday II, in which LiLo swaps bodies with Jamie Lee Curtis again, this time having to rescue her mother from the grips of a serial killer before he destroys both mommy dearest and Lohan’s body.

One of the two Lohans here works as a stripper who never properly strips, while the other wears intelligent spectacles and takes creative writing classes at school. As you might expect, it’s easier to buy into Lohan as a stripper than an intelligent student. She’s not good as either, but the idea of any Lindsay Lohan doing well at school is a leap of faith too far. A leap too far even for a movie which ends with her wearing a battery operated foot.

Intelligent Lohan is kidnapped and gratuitously tortured with blocks of ice and the colour blue. The violence is surprisingly gruesome, with poor Aubrey coming out of her ordeal minus a leg, some fingers and quite possibly her mind. She insists that she isn't Aubrey but actually her twin, Dakota the prudish stripper.

Colour blind people and dogs should not watch this movie, because a lot of the subtext will be lost on them. Neither should people with Cyanophobia. Come to think of it, nobody should really watch this movie, but you’ll need access to a full palette of colour vision to fully appreciate it. Everything is blue here, from a rose given to Aubrey, to the gag and pill shoved in her mouth during the torture scenes. I'm still disappointed that nobody bothered to use 'Blue (Da Ba Dee)' by Eiffel 65 on the soundtrack. Conversely, the palette switches to red when she’s in the ‘Dakota’ persona to emphasize that she’s a stripper now.

The acting is a mixed bag. The supporting cast of teenagers aren’t noticeably bad, but Lohan creates such a vacuum of badness that it’s hard to notice anyone else anyway - except, of course, for Neal McDonaugh and Eddie Steeples as a kindly Doctor who helps Aubrey/Dakota come to terms with her mechanical leg. Yes, Eddie Steeples; Crab Man of My Name Is Earl fame.

I Know who Killed me is a movie so bad that it becomes accidentally quite brilliant. For this reason, I find myself unable to accurately rate the thing. Technically:

But if I'm being honest with myself:

I Know Who Killed My Credibility. Lindsay Lohan did, with her stupidly entertaining shitty movie.

Hatchet

Director: Adam Green (2006)

Starring: Joel David Moore, Kane Hodder, Tamara Feldman

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Right up there with The Tripper as my favourite slasher movie of the noughties, Hatchet strands a group of tourists in the middle of a New Orleans swamp and pits them against Kane Hodder in dungarees. I don't fancy their chances much, especially since Hodder is playing an even more pissed off version of Jason Voorhees here.

What it lacks in originality, Hatchet more than makes up for with guts and gore. The spurting wounds and decimated carcasses put me in mind of Braindead. It's slower paced and less funny than that movie, but when the action kicks off there's the same sense of splatter and damp violence. Joel David Moore is the film's Scream Queen, as dejected rebounder Ben. Attempting to recover from a traumatic breakup, he heads off on a lads' holiday with some chums. Together with best pal Marcus (Deon Richmond) he signs up for a 'haunted swamp tour' as suggested by Tony Todd's Reverend Zombie (with a cameo from Robert Englund in the opening scene, Hatchet is all about the horror icons). Little do they know that the tour is heading right into the playground of tragic nutter Victor Crowley.

It's a divisive film, and I can see why. It's oddly paced, with most of the action occurring towards the end. Some of the characters could be construed as annoying, with everyone but Moore playing it over the top and chewing scenery like Hannibal Lecter at a nudist beach. There's no room for subtlety here; very little stalking but lots of slashing. If anything, Crowley's too efficient, tearing his victims to shreds almost as soon as he appears. The pacing in the last twenty or so minutes is frenetic. Hatchet is the heavy metal song of slasher movies; all shouting and swearing and crashing drums and then it's over.

And in the middle, Kane Hodder reveals some surprising acting chops. There's a really nice flashback sequence - probably the best scene in the whole film - in which we see Hodder, as Victor's Dad, showing his shonkily-faced son some love, before he accidentally puts a hatchet through said shonky face. I really wanted to give Kane Hodder a hug here. It's the sorriest I've felt for him since he got the sack from Freddy vs Jason in favour of Sad Jason. In an otherwise throwaway movie (fun as it is, Crowley is no icon) this origins story holds up to any Freddy or Jason. It's a wonderful idea.

Hatchet isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it certainly is mine. It's fun, funny and tremendously gory in the very best way. And the best bit is, they made a sequel that's even better.