I wish they killed me, too, so I wouldn't have had to sit through this movie.
With all that's been printed and said about Lindsay Lohan this week, you'd think you'd have heard of her new movie opening today -- I Know Who Killed Me. Even before her new spate of post-rehab antics, Sony gave virtually no press to the troubled starlet's new feature. But now I've finally seen it. And let's just say that if I were her, I think I'd be getting wasted and driving into trees/assistants' moms, too.
I Know Who Killed Me is a horror/thriller/pile of excrement about Aubrey
Fleming (Lohan) - a happy if somewhat edgy suburban teen, a talented writer and promising pianist. When Aubrey goes missing, the town is sure she must have been abducted by a local serial killer. But when she escapes, she is in some post-traumatic state and thinks she is a stripper named Dakota Moss. The town--and Aubrey--won't be safe until he is found.
The ruthless truth is this: I Know Who Killed Me is terrible in so many ways that it virtually defies description. But that's what I’m here for, so I'm going to try to persevere.
I Know Who Killed Me opens with a nipple shot (sorry, not Lindsay's) in one of the first frames--not usually a good sign when you have to use nudity that early on to keep your audience. The script by first time screenwriter Jeff Hammond is laughable. And so predictable that even I--queen of suspended disbelief--figured out the entire plot about 2 minutes in. Normally adept actors like Neal McDonough (Minority Report, Flags of Our Fathers) and Julia Ormond (Sabrina, Legends of the Fall) struggle and fail with the hideous, heavy-handed dialogue, prompting sniggers at several inappropriate moments throughout the theater.
The rest of the cast fare no better, in particular Ms. Lohan herself. The notion of seeing someone so focused on for her hard-partying ways in the role of a stripper is, understandably, irresistible. I am sad to say, though, that as I surmised after seeing her earlier this year in Georgia Rule, the promise that she exhibited so strongly in Mean Girls appears to have faded with her youth and innocence. As in Georgia Rule, Lohan comes off bratty, hammy, and uncomfortably bad. There is no differentiation between her roles as Aubrey and Dakota (aside from the color imagery with which director Chris Sivertson hits you over the head, but she can hardly lay claim to that).
And if it's possible, she isn't even believable as a stripper. I've seen strippers, and unless I'm mistaken they tend to favor a lot of silicone, over-plucked eyebrows, heavy make-up, dyed hair, and clear shoes. She just looks like a road-hard, chain-smoking slag, and yet at the same time too young to be in such a harsh environment. And to make matters worse (or, I suppose better, depending on your perspective), Sivertson includes several prolonged stripping sequences throughout the movie--for no reason than I can see other than to exploit the fact that he has Lindsey in her skivvies. As it turns out, that may be his least egregious offense.
The biggest affront of the movie, though, is just how hideously gory it is. I Know Who Killed Me is billed as a thriller, but in the hands of Sivertson (director of such hits as All Cheerleaders Die) it becomes nothing short of a torture porn bloodfest--with gore the likes of which you simply do not expect from a movie with someone of Lohan's star power. I suspect that the aforementioned color imagery (red = Dakota, blue = Aubrey) was his attempt to elevate the film, make it "arty," but instead it just comes off as facile, juvenile, and distracting. Oh, and the special effects? HORRIBLE.
At points the movie is so bad, in fact, that I thought perhaps it might be a send-up of the horror genre (my go-to hope for overtly awful movies), but no, I don't think that's the case. I think, sadly, it's just a rotten, rotten movie.
It's a shame. Lohan did not need any more bad press this week, but I fear it is coming to her in a big way as a result of this movie. What happens to her--personally and career-wise will surely be a matter of immediate discussion. But the bigger question on my mind is: How on earth did this wretched nightmare ever get made?!
ReelzChannel Rating: 