I Know Who Killed Me is a 2007 American psychological thriller directed by Chris Sivertson and written by Jeff Hammond with starring Lindsay Lohan. The film's story revolves around a student who was abducted and tortured by a sadistic serial killer. She manages to make it out alive, but after she regains consciousness in the hospital, she insists that her identity is that of another woman.
The film released in July 27, 2007 by TriStar Pictures. I Know Who Killed Me received panned by critics and Box Office Disappointing and call it label an one of the worst films ever made. The film was the most awarded at the 28th Golden Raspberry Awards, winning eight of nine nominations, including Worst Picture and Lohan tying with herself to win Worst Actress as well as Worst Screen Couple for both characters she portrayed. It did, however, attain a more successful home video performance, having almost quadrupled its U.S. box office gross in estimated domestic DVD sales. The film subsequently developed a cult following and several screenings of it have been put together by historic theaters and film festivals.
Plot[]
| Spoiler Warning: The following contains important plot details of the entire film. |
The quiet suburb of New Salem is being terrorized by a serial killer who abducts and tortures young women, holding them captive for weeks before murdering them.
Aspiring writer & pianist Aubrey Fleming (Lindsay Lohan) appears to be his latest victim when she disappears during a night out with her friends. She is later seen bound and gagged on an operating table as her hands are exposed to dry ice.
As the days tick by, the special FBI Task Force convened to track the killer begins to lose hope of finding her before it's too late.
Late one night, a driver discovers a young woman by the side of a deserted road, disheveled and critically injured. The girl is rushed to the hospital where Aubrey’s distraught parents, Susan (Julia Ormond) and Daniel (Neal McDonough), wait by her side as she slips in and out of consciousness.
When she is finally able to speak, she shocks everyone by claiming to be a down-on-her luck stripper named Dakota Moss, who has never heard of Aubrey Fleming.
Convinced that Aubrey is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, her doctors, parents, and law enforcement officials can only wait for rest and therapy to restore her memory.
After returning to her parents’ suburban home, Dakota continues to insist she is not who they think she is, despite bearing bizarre wounds identical to those of the serial killer's previous victims which include her hand and half of her leg cut off.
The FBI agents are further mystified when they search Aubrey’s laptop and discover a short story about a girl with an alter ego named Dakota.
When Dakota begins to suspect that she may be Aubrey's identical twin sister, Susan shows her a video of her pregnancy ultrasound clearly revealing there was only one fetus in her womb.
Confused and terrified, Dakota starts seeing visions of a menacing figure slowly butchering his captive. Convinced that time is running out both for Aubrey and herself, she confronts Daniel with a shocking truth that leads them on a frantic hunt for the killer.
Aubrey and Dakota are indeed twins, born to Virginia Sue Moss, a crack addict. Moss gave birth to them the same time the Flemings had their own child, who died in the incubator. Daniel quietly raises one as his own daughter, paying Virginia over the years by mail.
Dakota finds the envelopes and attempts to find her sister when she suffers sympathetic resonance from her twin's wounds and is found by the highway.
It turns out the two are stigmatic twins with a psychic connection that lets them share pain, communicate and even share experiences which explains some of Aubrey's stories.
After investigating the grave of Aubrey's recently murdered friend, Jennifer Toland (Stacy Lynn Gabel), Dakota finds a blue ribbon from a piano competition, with a message from Jennifer's (and Aubrey's) piano teacher, Douglas Norquist (Thomas Tofel).
Dakota realizes that Norquist murdered Jennifer and abducted Aubrey after they expressed intentions to quit their piano lessons, taking off their fingers, arm and a leg in a twisted act of retribution.
Dakota and Daniel confront Norquist & Daniel dies in the process, but Dakota cuts off Norquist's hand & delivers a fatal blow to his neck. She then finds Aubrey where Norquist buried her alive and frees her.
The movie ends with Aubrey and Dakota lying together on the ground, looking out into the night.
Cast[]
- Lindsay Lohan as Aubrey Fleming/Dakota Moss
- Julia Ormond as Susan Fleming
- Neal McDonough as Daniel Fleming
- Brian Geraghty as Jerrod Pointer
- Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon as Agent Julie Bascome
- Spencer Garrett as Agent Phil Lazarus
- Kenya Moore as Jazmin
- Gregory Itzin as Dr. Grehg Jameson
- Thomas Tofel as Douglas Norquist
- Rodney Rowland as Kenny Scaife
- Michael Adler as Dr. Alex Dupree
- Paula Marshall as Marnie Toland
- Brian McNamara as Fred Toland
- Stacy Lynn Gabel (uncredited) as Jennifer Toland
- Michael Papajohn as Jacob K./Joseph K.
- Art Bell as himself
- Jessica Rose as Marcia
Production[]
Before filming, Lohan actually took pole-dancing lessons to prepare for her role as a stripper.
The filming dates took place between December 2006 and March 2007. Principal photography was mostly held in California.
In the first week of production, filming was halted after Lohan was hospitalized, her representative saying "she was overheated and dehydrated."
Production stayed halted soon after as Lohan underwent appendix surgery & filming was soon then delayed even longer after the incision was infected and the filmmakers were waiting for a doctor's approval for Lohan to continue working.
This all occurred around the same time that Lohan admitted herself to the Wonderland Center rehabilitation facility for a 30-day stay. During the stay, she continued shooting the film, returning to the facility at night.
Because of all the negative reputation that Lohan was getting, she could not even walk to her trailer without the paparazzi photographing her & sometimes they would even end up in the background of some shots of the film.
In July, Lohan was arrested which prevented her from doing promotion for the film. She even had to withdraw from a scheduled appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in which she had been due to promote the film.
Reception[]
Box Office[]
The film premiered on July 27, 2007 to what "Entertainment Weekly" called "an abysmal $3.5 million." It grossed $9.7 million worldwide on a $12 million budget, making it a box office bomb.
Critical Reception[]
The film was not screened in advance for critics.
Rotten Tomatoes shows a 7% approval rating based on 73 reviews with the consensus: "Distasteful and ludicrously plotted, I Know Who Killed Me is a career nadir for all involved -- particularly Lindsay Lohan in a dual role."
It currently holds a 16/100 rating on Metacritic, which indicates "overwhelming dislike".
CinemaScore audience polling gave the film an "F", making it one of only 8 films to have received an "F" score.
Richard Roeper ranked it number one on his "Worst movies of 2007" list; a few years later, Roeper named it the worst film of the 2000s.
Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter said: "There's a fresh candidate in the running for worst movie of 2007 honours. "I Know Who Killed Me," a ridiculous thriller (minus the thrills) starring the embattled Lindsay Lohan in a dual role, has all the hallmarks necessary for qualification: A nonsensical plot that grows sillier by the second, tawdry special effects, heavy-handed symbolism that's big on electric-blue hues and mechanical performances are all culprits as far as the title's concerned."
Empire Online named it number 34 on it's 50 Worst Movies List, saying, "Remember how great Lindsay Lohan was in Mean Girls? Or Freaky Friday, or The Parent Trap? Well, if you do, be sure never to watch this, because it will spoil those memories forever. We could forgive Lohan for wanting to make a racier, adult thriller. If only it were thrilling."
It was also on MRQE's 50 Worst Movies list.
However, the film did garner some positive reviews.
Fangoria praises the film's imaginative use of color, saying, "[T]he director and his visual team bathe the film in deep blues and reds, a welcome departure from the dirty green, sodium-lit palette of similarly themed horror fare, and the end result is simply a beautiful, eye-popping visual treat, so stylized that one can't help recalling Argento's approach to Suspiria."
The Radio Times also alluded to the director "recalling the style of Dario Argento" in a "twisty, perversely fascinating psycho thriller."
The horror-movie website BloodyDisgusting.com gave the film a glowing review and suggested that "Lohan's continual issues with drugs/alcohol/DUI’s/rehab/on-set bitchiness" were part of a "whirlwind of media frenzy" that was unnecessary and "irrelevant to the movie."
The film itself was "a more-than-pleasant surprise, well-filmed, well-acted, especially by Lohan herself, and a surprisingly intriguing and gruesome little thriller."
Boston Globe critic Ty Burr compared the film favorably to Brian de Palma's Sisters and Body Double, as well as the works of David Lynch.
The film received nine Razzie nominations which was the most of any film that year. It won eight, including two awards for "Worst Actress" (Lindsay Lohan playing twins), "Worst Picture", "Worst Director" (Chris Sivertson), "Worst Screenplay" (Jeff Hammond), "Worst Screen Couple" (Lohan and Lohan), "Worst Remake or Rip-off" (rip-off of Hostel, Saw and The Patty Duke Show) and a special category "Worst Excuse for a Horror Film."
The only award that it lost was "Worst Supporting Actress" (Julia Ormond), who lost to Eddie Murphy for his role in drag in Norbit.
The movie set a record for the most Razzie wins in a single year (previously beating the tie held by Battlefield Earth and Showgirls with seven wins each) though "Battlefield Earth" has surpassed eight awards with wins in subsequent years.
The record for most wins in a single year was broken in 2012 when Jack and Jill won ten awards.
Home Media[]
The DVD and Blu-ray versions were released on November 27, 2007. The art cover of the DVD shows Lohan, in blue, pole-dancing, with the faces of her alter egos Aubrey Fleming and Dakota Moss on either side. Among the extras are alternate opening and ending scenes with the latter showing that the entire plot was actually written by the Aubrey character. However, test audiences allegedly thought this ending was too predictable, so it was cut from the film. Other extras include an extended version of Lohan's strip dance at the club and bloopers. By January, the DVD had grossed $11.99 million. The Region 2 DVD was released January 28, 2008 with different cover art showing a close-up of Lohan, in red, doing her pole-dance at the strip club. In the United States, the film has grossed over $28 million in estimated DVD sales.
Soundtrack[]
| I Know Who Killed Me | |
|---|---|
| Film score by
Joel McNeely | |
| Released | July 31, 2007 |
| Recorded | 2007 |
| Genre | Film soundtrack |
| Length | 1:35:09 |
| Label | Varèse Sarabande |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic | 3.5/5 |
The score for I Know Who Killed Me, composed by Joel McNeely, was released on July 24, 2007. It drew comparisons to the television mystery scores by Billy Goldenberg and received almost unanimously positive reviews from film music critics, with James Southall of Movie Wave saying the "unexpectedly classy score seems to go beyond the call of duty" and Clark Douglas of Movie Music UK rating it 5 stars and calling it "one of the year's best scores, a must-have for those who are willing to take a trip into a deep, dark, and sometimes terrifying musical world."
- "Prelude for a Madman"
- "Duality"
- "Fairytale Theme"
- "A Daughter Is Dead"
- "End of Innocence/Aubrey Is Gone"
- "A Mother's Grief"
- "Search for Aubrey"
- "The Bus Stop"
- "Spontaneous Bleed"
- "Going Home"
- "Jennifer's Room"
- "Some People Get Cut"
- "Investigating Stigmata"
- "The Mirror"
- "The Graveyard"
- "I Know Who Killed Me"
- "The House"
- "Dad Dies"
- "Death of Norquist"
- "Prelude/Reunited"
- "Valse Brillante, Op. 34, No. 2 in A Minor"
Theatrical Trailer[]
I Know Who Killed Me (2007) Trailer