I Know Who Killed Me (2007) DVD Review

I Know Who Killed Me
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Art Bell
Directed By: Chris Sivertson
Written By: Jeff Hammond
Released: 2007
Grade: D+

In 2004. Lindsay Lohan was at the top of her game with Mean Girls. She has certainly fallen since then. Between weight loss, drugs, and partying her film career certainly has suffered. I Know Who Killed Me did not do very well in theaters, partially because Lohan was unable to promote the film due to her drug habit. In fact, when the movie was released in theaters she was dealing with a DUI and cocaine possession. She has become quite a mess and so has I Know Who Killed Me.

Aubrey Fleming (Lohan) is an intelligent girl with the support of her kind and fairly well off parents, Susan (Ormond) and Daniel (McDonough). She had won the young artists award for piano in the past and has been taking lessons from Art (Bell) for quite some time. However, Aubrey decides that playing piano isn’t what she really wants. It is just getting in the way of her true passion; writing. Without piano, she will be able to focus on writing full time. After a football game she disappears though. She has been abducted by a serial killer who has killed several of young girls in the area. The police believe they have found Aubrey. She is hospitalized with a missing leg, arm, and finger. However, there is the question of whether this is really even Aubrey or not. She claims her name is Dakota Moss. She says her mother has passed away and was a junkie. Dakota says she doesn’t know how she got her injuries or even what her torturer looks like. She says it must have been someone who was in the audience her first night of work at a strip club where she had started dancing.

No one really believes Dakota and everyone is sure that she is a delusional version of Aubrey; just a victim of trauma and shock. She goes back with the Flemings who seem like strangers to her. Her parents struggle to get their little girl back as Dakota struggles with feeling completely alone and imprisoned. She is a very wild girl and she doesn’t like to feel detained. As if losing body parts isn’t bad enough, she begins to be injured further, once again with no knowledge as to how it is happening to her. After doing some research she forms the theory that she is Aubrey’s twin sister. All of their injuries have been identical. So Dakota thinks that when something happens to one of them it automatically happens to the other one. This makes her think that Aubrey is still alive and continuing to be tortured. Dakota tries to convince others of this to try to save Aubrey before she is killed.

I really thought that I Know Who Killed Me would be one of those movies that was so bad it was funny. I didn’t even get this appeal though. The most laughable moments in the movie are just due to poor acting. It is clear that the vast majority of the characters don’t matter what so ever to the writer. They are just a tool to move along the plot. Nearly everyone either overacts excessively or is just so robotic that it is almost pointless for them to even be included. They defiantly don’t add anything to the movie. Lindsay Lohan does seem somewhat washed out here. This works against her in her role as Aubrey. She can’t play the good girl twin like she did in The Parent Trap. Lohan seems fake and her performance seems forced as Aubrey. However, this actually works to her favor as Dakota. Dakota is a promiscuous, wild and somewhat trashy girl. This isn’t a very big stretch for Lohan presently. Art Bell is one of the only other actors who managed to do a decent job with the chaos of a script he was handed.

Perhaps I Know Who Killed Me was the wrong choice of title. There is not too large of a concentration on the killer. I wish there would have been though. I understand that the identity of the killer wasn’t meant to be known for the majority of the film. It wasn’t too big of a mystery anyway. The film would have benefited from getting in to his mind more. There is no reason why we would have to know who it is. If Dakota can really feel what Aubrey does then she should have a better idea of who the killer was or at least know more about him. One way to show this more effectively could have been to have the murderer get in to her head. I am sure he was doing this to Aubrey so it is only natural that he would have an effect like this on Dakota. Pretty much the only thing that Dakota can remember about her torturer is that he was intense. Imagine that, a serial killer who tortures young girls regularly and has killed several of them is intense. One of the only things that the detectives “know” about him is that he fears death. While the first statement is painfully obvious the second is completely illogical. If he really is afraid of death than he picked an odd profession. He believes he has killed Aubrey. When Dakota comes to try to stop this she finds someone she has came to care about dead. The murderer is very angered to see her alive after he has took it upon himself to bury her himself. He immediately attempts to kill her saying he will have to do it all over again. I see no signs of fear of death here. If anything he is intoxicated not just with death but the process of it and experimenting how much he can play with his subjects before they die.

The film has an extreme obsession with the color blue. It is revealed that the blue is supposed to represent Aubrey (the good) and red represents Dakota (the bad). The problem is that the symbolism of the blue is extremely overused. Nearly everything is blue from the school colors to roses to the killers gloves. There are many things that obviously have nothing to do with Aubrey that are blue. If she is the good one then all of these things should represent good. The gloves definitely don’t show anything good. They represent all that is evil and cruel. Red got lost in this color comparison. The blue is so exaggerated that they practically forgot to add any red. This doesn’t showcase the relationship. This element should be there whether Dakota is Aubrey’s twin or just a second personality.

The gore was the most impressive aspect of the movie. It was grotesquely graphic and difficult to watch. It expressed the severity of the situation very well. The cinematography was very well done in these parts as well as throughout the rest of the movie. Through his though it becomes clear that the filmmakers took themselves and the film too seriously. The artistic flair takes off while the logic is left behind. Sure the visuals are good but that leaves us with style but no substance. I wasn’t too fond of the ending. It was on a good start when the killer was revealed. Then there is the moment of truth that we have all been waiting for. What should be a pivotal moment comes and fades with no reaction and there is just no sense in this ending scene. What is even worse about the movie is that I think the initial idea is actually a very good one. The thought that pain could be brought to you anytime it is brought to someone else, someone that you never knew existed and have no control over is very terrifying. I Know Who The Killed Me might be a gory horror film with a vibrant look, but its’ poor script, characters, acting, and direction bring it down and waste a good idea.

See Lindsay Lohan's sex scene here.