I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

Directed by Chris Sivertson. Starring Lindsay Lohan, Neal McDonough, Julia Ormond, Brian Geraghty, Spencer Garrett, Gregory Itzin, Garcelle Beauvais, Bonnie Aarons, Jessica Lee Rose, Megan Aarons, Thomas Tofel. [R]

A young writer and pianist named Aubrey (Lohan) is kidnapped by a serial killer, tortured, and found barely alive on the side of the road with an arm and leg amputated. In the hospital, however, she claims to be a down-and-out, degraded stripper named Dakota, much to the chagrin of her parents and boyfriend who swear this lookalike must be Aubrey. Director Chris Siverston and screenwriter Jeff Hammond try to build a swirling psychological mystery to keep the viewer guessing about the “twin” Lohans and the identity of the killer, but it’s all so dreary and morbid and hackneyed, it becomes hard to sustain interest almost immediately. Grimy sequences set in the murderer’s lair and the strip club where Dakota works are like music videos for non-existent songs off the soundtrack of “Rob Zombie’s Saw”; purposeful scenes are interlocked with pointless ones, frequently transitioning with heavy fadeouts like TV-movie commercial breaks. Amid all the hackneyed filmmaking tricks, including in-your-face “symbolism” heavy on the owls and the vivid colors of red and blue (my goodness, the blue…more blue than a warehouse (or landfill) full of Eiffel 65 CD’s), the actors play their parts as if they don’t even know whose parts they’re playing, with a pitiful showing from the once-promising Lohan, who fails to distinguish the two personalities/personas from one another, and bewildering work from Spencer Garrett and Garcelle Beauvais as inexplicably antagonistic detectives who keep making harsh and/or accusatory remarks toward the victim. Just an incompetent mess all around, as dull and humorless as it is confusing and distancing—yeah, sure, now I also know who killed “me”, but I couldn’t care less.

8/100