I Know Who Killed Me

Credentials: 7% Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com)/16 out of 100 (Metacritic.com)/3.6 out of 10 (Imdb.com)

Nominated for 9 Golden Raspberry Awards in 2007, won 8 (Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst Director, Worst Screen Couple [Lohan and Lohan], Worst Remake or Rip-off, Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie, and two awards for Worst Actress, one for each of Lohan’s characters in the film)

Plot: A talented young writer and piano player (played by Lindsay Lohan... surprising choice, I know) falls into the hands of a sadistic serial killer. She manages to escape and returns home a few weeks later sans a few important body parts, but with a whole new memory. She claims to be a stripper who grew up in a crack house with her addict mom. Now that sounds like a Lindsay Lohan part to me. Is she suffering from a case of post-traumatic stress disorder after her run in with a maniac? Or is something else going on? Something far less believable?

Thoughts: I know what you’re thinking.

                No, I’m not psychic (or am I? 17, three of clubs and moon bounces, any of those things hit home?), but there's only one possible question that comes to mind when you’re talking about a movie like “I Know Who Killed Me.”

                Is this another one of those movies where the famous leading lady plays a stripper and somehow manages to keep her clothes on for the duration of the film? (Think: “Sin City,” “Closer,” ect.)

                The answer is yes, “IKWKM” is exactly that kind of movie.

                Imagine if you will, if Darren Aronofsky had applied this kind of thinking to “Requiem for a Dream:”

                “Alright, quiet on the set! Quiet down! Look, before we start filming I want to remind everyone that this is a movie about the horrors of drug abuse. That being said, I don’t want to see a single joint on screen at any time! I will not permit any depictions of drug abuse in my movie about drug abuse! Is that understood?”

                What’s even more shocking is that Lindsay can’t seem to keep her clothes on in any other venue. The longest she’s ever gone without donning her birthday suit is the 90 minutes she plays a stripper in “IKWKM.”

                Now, let's switch gears to the movie itself.       

                “IKWKM” is basically what would happen if Eli Roth directed a Lifetime movie of the week.

                It’s full of insane, wholly unbelievable melodrama broken up by moments of stomach-churning gore shot in extreme close-up.

Shockingly, LiLo actually almost pulls off the good girl character early in the film. And then the whole killer angle comes into play and suddenly she's the aforementioned stripper for the majority of it.

Perhaps the stripper character is just too close to her real life persona, because LiLo can’t make it work. She just seems like a caricature.

                 As bad as Lohan is, she is very nearly out done by Julia Ormond, who plays her mom. Ormond is trying to act so hard in the movie you can almost see smoke coming out of her ears. She really, really wants to give a convincing performance, she just lacks talent.

                As for the movie’s script, well, it’s a half-baked mess.

                The serial killer subplot is so hastily thrown together that it seems like an afterthought. Sure, the angle is a driving force of the story, but why should you spend anytime developing it at all?

                I’m honestly not sure how Lohan’s character managed to unlock the mystery of the killer’s true identity. It seemed like she was just making wild, groundless assumptions that all turned out to be right.

                The killer’s motivations, which the movie spends maybe a tenth of a second of screen time on, are laughable, if you pay close enough attention to actually catch them.

                Then there’s the conclusion, which is so stupid and improbable that you almost feel bad for everyone involved. And where the heck did the town’s entire police force disappear to?

                Still, I’ll give the film’s screenwriter, Jeff Hammond, credit for actually managing to shoehorn the line: “I know who killed me” into the movie. Even though it makes zero sense in terms of either logic or story (no one had actually died when it was uttered).

                On to the film’s director: Chris Sivertson.

                Sivertson bathes his entire movies in blues and reds, depending on which character Lohan is playing. Blue for the good girl and a seductive red for the stripper. Clever.

At least it is until Sivertson loses his mind and starts putting blues and reds everywhere. He turns the movie into the world’s biggest paint-by-numbers game and he’s only got two numbers in his arsenal.

The whole color thing is meant to be stylish and cool, but it just becomes immensely distracting. Before long, I found myself tuning out the characters and trying to spot all of the unnatural uses of color in a given scene.

                The adventurous out there could probably make some kind of drinking game out of that, but proceed at your own risk. You’ve only got one liver and Sivertson loves him some blues and reds.

Breakdown 

:06-

You couldn't even cast a fluffy cat? Everything about this movie sucks already.

:30-

Hey everyone look over here! I'm acting! Come on watch!
Look, see how good I am?!

:48-

I'm sorry did I accidentally put on "Empire Strikes Back" or was prosthetic
 technology way more advanced in 2007 than I though?

1:02-

What a surprise, I never would expected to see that color scheme in this movie!

1:13-

I don't know. If I was going to put all my faith into a Youtube video,
I'd at least pick one with better graphics.

1:26-

We get it! Enough with the reds and blues already you lunatic!

1:38-



I was making this exact same face while watching "I Know Who Killed Me"

  

               So there it is, “I Know Who Killed Me.”

                Bumblebee tuna.