Sometimes I should just know better.

There weren’t any press screenings for the latest Lindsay Lohan mystery/thriller I Know Who Killed Me, and while that is usually a pretty bad sign in the wake of the starlet’s latest troubles I just couldn’t help but wonder what this thing was going to look like. This is, after all, the film where she plays a foul-mouthed stripper (who somehow stays surprisingly clothed) and gets both a hand a leg carved off by a sadistic madman, and with fond memories of Freaky Friday and A Prairie Home Companion swimming in my brain I just had to see this thing for myself.

Lindsay Lohan is stalked by evil in TriStar Pictures' I Know Who Killed Me

But, like I said, I should have known better. My only guess is that the former Disney wunderkind must have been high on one of the myriad of illegal substances she’s supposedly dallied with (and gone to rehab twice for) while reading Jeffrey Hammond’s ghastly script. This has got to be one of the most laughably ponderous horror features I’ve sat through in ages, and if the grisly unrelentingly cliché violence doesn’t get you to uncomfortably giggle then the sight of little miss Lohan chain-smoking and talking like a street-smart hooker certainly will.

In all fairness, the film isn’t quite that bad. Actually, let me adjust that a little; the film isn’t that bad all the way through. Elements of it are surprisingly strong, not the least of which is a bizarrely tender moment between Lohan and Julia Ormond (who deserves better) that actually boasts bona fide emotion. There’s also some fantastic camerawork on display by John R. Leonetti (Dead Silence), the movie both eerily unsettling and creepily beautiful the thanks for which is probably primarily due to him.

But that’s really about it. Director Chris Siverston drowns the picture in pretentious banalities and paces things so slowly a person’s time in the theater seems to fly by like dried-up mud fruitlessly making its way uphill. The way he treats everything with such dire and absolute seriousness would almost be commendable save for the fact Hammond’s story is so obnoxiously ludicrous, the third act twists so absurdly obvious I could hear the other three people sitting in the audience with me groan out loud in unison.

And what is that story? If you have to know, the plot follows a seemingly normal small town girl named Aubrey Fleming (Lohan) who is abducted and terrorized by a mad serial killer. Found on the side of the road, her left hand and leg severed, she’s taken to the hospital in order to recover from her ordeal. When she comes to it becomes quickly apparent the trauma has done something to the poor girl’s brain, Aubrey now claiming to have no memory of what happened to her and saying she's a big city stripper named Dakota Moss.

There’s more, but in all honesty I don’t have the energy or the willpower to go into it. None of it makes a lick of sense, and the silly Twilight Zone antics of the last third easily ruin any chance the film has of being anything other then a (hopefully) quickly forgotten monstrosity. Even with all her drama, I’ve always been one of actress’ biggest supporters (just see my review of Georgia Rule) but even I can’t find much to say that’s positive about this.

While the solution to I Know Who Killed Me isn’t worth talking about, if Lohan wants to know who it was who killed her career sadly all she’s got to do is look in the mirror. Hopefully doing so will allow her to save something more important than her nighttime partying or her Hollywood star power… her life.

Film Rating:  ê1/2  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  I Know Who Killed Me Theatrical Trailer