I Know Who Killed Me
Year Released: 2007Directed By: Chris Sivertson
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty, Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, Spencer Garrett
(R, 105 min.)
If you think getting arrested for driving under the influence and drug possession only a few days after completing a second stint in rehab is the worst thing that could happen to a promising but troubled young actress, think again: You haven’t seen I Know Who Killed Me, a gruesome whodunit that’s missing more than a few brain cells. The film’s good girl/bad girl conceit may be rooted thematically in the dual existence-premised films of revered foreign filmmakers like Bergman and Kieslowski, but I Know Who Killed Me plays more like a sequel to Saw. This movie is a bloody mess, in more than one sense. It doesn’t help that Jeff Hammond’s asinine screenplay poses as a mystery without any clues. A psychotic killer with a penchant for amputation kidnaps a bright high school student named Aubrey (Lohan), but when a young woman matching her description is later found barely alive – albeit, missing a hand and a leg – she claims she is not Aubrey but Dakota, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who pole-dances for a living. From there, the narrative grows more bizarre and incoherent as Aubrey/Dakota (or is it Dakota/Aubrey?) goes Nancy Drew and discovers (plot spoiler alert!) why a person’s finger or leg can begin bleeding and fall off all by itself – she’s a stigmatic twin! Yes, the rarely documented medical phenomenon of stigmatic twins is revealed in I Know Who Killed Me – just imagine how more entertaining Lohan’s 1998 remake of the Disney film The Parent Trap would have been had it featured a gaping wound or two based on this plot device. Many will speculate about Lohan’s state of mind in agreeing to appear in this claptrap horror piece, which frequently requires her to appear with a grotesquely bloody stump, all the while wearing something that shows off her ample cleavage. But by the time Aubrey/Dakota finally confronts the killer in a torture room decorated with prosthetic arms and legs dangling from the ceiling, you’ll be laughing so hysterically at the ineptitude of it all that you won’t really care why she’s sunk so low. Indeed, Lohan’s appearance in I Know Who Killed Me may ultimately work in her favor. Given her latest legal troubles, it could provide her with sufficient grounds for an insanity defense.
Steve Davis [2007-08-03]
