When Your Favorite Movie Is a “Bad Movie”
A defense of I Know Who Killed Me (2007) starring Lindsay Lohan
Content note: This essay discusses themes, but not incidents of, of patriarchal violence and gender-based trauma.
It wasn’t until two years ago when I saw my favorite movie—a psychological thriller starring Lindsay Lohan called I Know Who Killed Me—in theaters for the first time, 14 years after its box office release. If you haven’t (yet) seen this masterpiece, here’s a summary:
A young woman named Aubrey Fleming (Lindsay Lohan) falls victim to a sadistic kidnapper. When her ordeal is finally over, Aubrey has a shocking surprise for her family: She claims to be someone else. Some wonder whether Aubrey is mentally ill, intentionally lying, or if there is some bizarre truth to her claim.
My partner and I journeyed into lower Manhattan on Halloween 2021. IKWKM screened at midnight on 35mm film in the basement of the historic Roxy Hotel. I sat on a pilled maroon seat cushion, eager to see my favorite actress on the big screen. The cinephiles in the audience, however, walked in with a different expectation.
Once the credits rolled, my heart sunk. I was about to clap and cheer, but I heard a lackluster laugh around me. I sunk into my crusty seat.
I’ve witnessed this moment before. I felt it when “Gimme More'' by Britney Spears was my favorite song in 2007, amidst the pop star’s public unraveling, a feeling I revisited while reading Spears’s memoir. It stings when your genuine interests are laughed at. It stings more when a piece of media is so chastised by the status quo that others cannot see the masterpiece in front of their own eyes.
The only horror movie in Lohan’s filmography, IKWKM has a reputation for being “one of the worst films ever made.” It has even earned a spot on Wikipedia’s list of films considered the worst. “A gruesome whodunit that's missing more than a few brain cells,” said Steve Davis in Austin Chronicle. “[A] sleazy, inept and worthless piece of torture porn,” Lou Lumenick wrote in New York Post. Additionally, while this film didn’t land Lohan her first Golden Raspberry Award, it did win seven out of its eight nominations, which set a record for the most Razzie wins in a single year. I strongly believe opinion that Lohan’s tabloid reputation as a Hollywood “It Girl”and by proxy, drug user, destroyed this film’s reception before it was even released, but that, dear reader, is another essay for a future newsletter.
I understand the surface-level criticism from a “high brow” perspective. Admittedly, there are plenty of corny lines sprinkled throughout the screenplay. “Sometimes, people get cut,” says a male passenger on the bus to Lohan’s character as blood drips from her cut arm through a towel. This line, along with others, I think intended to get a laugh out of the audience. If you were Some Dude looking to fawn over Lohan playing a stripper—a demographic the movie’s marketing materials were geared towards—of course, you wouldn’t get it! This movie is campy as fuck.
The main characters of the film—Aubrey Fleming/Dakota Moss, both played by Lohan—are victims of patriarchal violence in a “whodunit” mystery. Somehow alive, Dakota is found on the side of a lone road at night with missing limbs, similar injuries to those of a woman of the same age recently found dead. Meanwhile, Aubrey goes missing. There are several parts of the movie—such as the scene where Dakota wakes up from a coma to be horrified that she's missing her left knee and right arm—that the audience laughs at. The unsolicited laughs make the movie difficult to watch. They laugh at Lindsay’s acting, but inadvertently, they also laugh at Dakota, a female character who is now permanently disabled.
The movie is known for its use of blue objects placed excessively throughout the film. In a 2023 Q&A followed by a 35 mm screening of IKWKM in Los Angeles, director Chris Sivertson admitted, “No one stopped me,” when asked about the excessive blue imagery. He and the audience then shared a laugh.
From the lens of a survivor of gender-based trauma, blue can become a sign of danger while watching IKWKM. Dakota, a survivor of gender-based violence, tells the police over and over about how she can’t recall memories of the traumatic incident. While she doesn’t remember the man who cut her up, she does remember his blue latex gloves. Blue then represents the hands of her perpetrator. Thus, when blue is everywhere, danger is everywhere; to a survivor, when a trauma is known but cannot be recalled, danger is everywhere. To Dakota, danger is anywhere and everywhere, just like the color blue.
The filmmakers weren’t vocal about the obvious themes of patriarchal violence and gender-based trauma. My read as a survivor of gender-based violence is a unique one, which is why the film consumes me time and time again. Yet the audience laughs, the same cinephiles who walked into the theater already convinced they were about to watch a “bad” movie.
Now I must watch this.