I Know Who Killed Me

I guess we’ll have to go back to that classic definition of infinity. I would’ve thought it impossible to someday see Lindsay Lohan in a serial killer mystery movie that had all of its visuals and ideas ripped off of European arthouse master, Krzysztof Kieslowski. So we’re going back to redefining infinity as a monkey banging randomly on a typewriter and eventually typing out the complete works of William Shakespeare.

This new film titled I Know Who Killed Me is one of those weird pieces of proof that somebody can appreciate something they don’t understand enough to rip it off. They take the whole premise of Kieslowski’s La Double Vie de Veronique, having two identical women who have never met but share an inexplicable bond, and then go right ahead and explain the bond by ripping off The Omen, then go that extra mile and add a sci-fi element and intercut it with dragged out strip sequences.

But they pull some solid comedy out of this premise, which I have to admire. The one Lindsay is an Ivy League-bound science genius, piano protégé, creative writing star and all around golden girl. The other identical Lindsay is a stripper with really bad judgement. The funniness comes in with the little touches of the unspoken bond. When honour roll Lindsay is reading her stories to her creative writing class she straddles the desk and strikes subtly sexual poses. When stripper Lindsay’s finger inexplicably falls off, she shows premed abilities in sewing it back on.

Like I said, stripper Lindsay has bad judgement, I would’ve splurged for a trip to the hospital if my whole finger just fell off. Stripper Lindsay says “Hospital’s are for rich people.” Maybe she would’ve had the money for limb reattachment if she didn’t spend it all on her wardrobe for her stripping act. You see, like Sin City, this is another one of those strip clubs where all the strippers take off their clothes except for the one played by a Hollywood actress. Lindsay just has to walk around the stage in lingerie because she’s famous. It’s some weird bylaw.

They also use Kieslowski’s Trois Couleurs: Bleu and Trois Couleurs: Rouge in that they have the colors red and blue ubiquitously showing up throughout the film. But in I Know Who Killed Me it becomes so obnoxious so fast that you almost think the movie was inspired by a drinking game. Every time there is blueness or redness take a shot. And maybe this is a cheap shot, but I don’t think talking Lindsay Lohan into doing a movie inspired by a drinking game would be hard work. I also think that the endless stripping montages of Lindsay pole dancing might have been from Lindsay’s personal stash or her audition tape for The Mickey Mouse Club.

Every shot in this film is tinted blue or red with some object that is even brighter blue or red than everything else. I kept hoping the ending would be one of those endings that results from reshoots done by a different director and the end would be orange or just untinted regular life. But they stuck to their guns and kept the red and blue in yer face all the way to the end.

I guess this is where I should mention that this film also draws on Star Wars. Eventually stripper Lindsay’s whole leg and hand fall off like her finger does earlier in the picture. She wakes up in the hospital where a robotics genius who really resembles Snoop Dogg equips her with a robotic hand and leg. Stripper Lindsay seems pretty cool with this, I think she’s getting a little too cocky for her own good. If I made a living as a stripper I’d probably be a lot more concerned about my career after losing two limbs. Fine enough to be stripper who won’t strip, but you should at least give your audience a whole woman or cut them some sort of really good deal.

I wanted the robot hand to be able to always win at rock, scissors, paper. I didn’t get that but I got something almost as good. During the climactic fight with The Serial Killer (remember, this is a serial killer movie after all) she uses the superstrength of her robot hand all I, Robot style and crushes the wrist of The Serial Killer.

There’s also a really funny part where after getting back home from Snoop Dogg’s robotics lab, Stripper Lindsay meets her boyfriend. She enters the room on crutches without her robot leg and explains that it’s charging, like an iPod, though it’s never mentioned whether or not it plays songs. The two have a sex scene that was made weird through editing. They filmed the scene so that you only see Lindsay from the back riding her boyfriend. They obviously filmed her cowgirling over a couple days because they have two different shots from pretty much the same angle, one where she clearly has a black bra on and one where she’s topless, and they keep editing back and forth between the two so that her bra keeps magically appearing and disappearing.

After the sex the boyfriend lies in bed staring at the robotic foot plugged into the wall charging its battery. Lindsay smokes a cigarette, choosing to hold it in her real hand. The boyfriend’s expression is pretty good, it’s probably the face I’d make if I’d just been shagged by the Terminator.

This film has many other nice touches, such as a visual motif of owls that was totally mismanaged and made no sense. When robot stripper Lindsay is trying to investigate who The Serial Killer is, she goes to a guy’s house and he has lots of sculptures and paintings of owls all over his place.

Then later, she’s looking at an owl and it hits her who The Serial Killer is, but he has nothing to do with the guy with all the owl sculptures. They actually could’ve cut that earlier scene at the other guy’s house completely and the film wouldn’t have changed. Stripperbot Lindsay goes to rescue Science Geek Lindsay by fighting The Serial Killer with her robot limbs and the movie ends with the two cuddling on the ground looking up at an owl. Science Geek Lindsay doesn’t seem to find it weird that a woman who looks identical to herself with robot limbs has come to her rescue.

I liked the climatic fight between Stripperbot Lindsay and The Serial Killer because of it took the whole Silence of the Lambs set up of a lone woman fighting a serial killer in his dark torture basement and added a Robocop element of cyborg violent overkill to the mix. I hate it in these movies when the victim just kicks the killer and tries to runaway. Robostripper Lindsay uses her I, Robot arm to crush this guy’s bones, beat him, then stab him several times climaxing with a fatal throat gash. And this guy isn’t even Jason or the Leprechaun, but better safe than sorry.

When they already had the whole absurd color scheme thing going I can’t believe they went that extra mile for another visual motif. Especially since they bring the whole owl thing in halfway through the movie and it doesn’t link anything together. They also don’t paint the owl blue or red, it’s just a regular brown owl.

I Know Who Killed Me also gives you the usuals in terms of the standard hallmarks that define these types of movies. You’ve got actors who look about five years older than the actress playing their teenage daughter. You’ve got a family that lives in a really nice huge house with no explanation as to their wealth.

And of course, you’ve got the typical police who don’t do any police work. When the cops find Stripper Lindsay without her leg and hand in a ditch, they assume it’s Ivy League-bound Lindsay, because she’s been abducted recently. But when Stripper Lindsay insists that she’s a different person who must just look the same, they don’t bother investigating. The FBI just bring in a pro psychiatrist who, I shit you not, uses blue and red pens to make a color-coded chart to document what he thinks is a case of split personality disorder. He later synthesizes all this information in his final report to the FBI in taking an 8X10 glossy headshot of Lindsay and writing “DELUSIONAL” across her forehead (in red) and underlining it.

You’ve even got that must-have scene where Stripperbot Lindsay does ‘research’ on the internet which involves typing one phrase into a search engine and immediately being supplied with a high resolution video of a ‘scientist’ (complete with lab coat) providing all the exposition required by the narrative complete with a bunch CSI style shots and sound effects of sciencey type thingamajiggs being told entertainingly in layman’s terms. It’s a shame the FBI don’t get fancy tools like the internet, then Robostripper Lindsay wouldn’t have to do all the serial killer investigation herself.

Needless to say, this film is pure gold. I’m really hoping for a sequel involving a third Lindsay and more robots and a third color, but it probably won’t happen. Since they already rip off a major plot twist from The Omen in this film, the sequel could also feature more satanic content. Obviously if this series continues they’ll have to use the titling model of the I Know What You Did Last Summer films and call the next one I Still Know Who Killed Me. There’s lots of room for growth. But then again, maybe this film was a sequel. Lindsay already played twins in her remake of The Parent Trap, I never saw that movie, but it has the word ‘trap’ in the title so maybe it was like one of those SAW movies. I’ll have to check that out.

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