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.
