Lindsay Lohan Film Causes DVD Player To Commit Suicide

Or: I Know Who Killed My DVD Player.

For some reason I thought it might be fun to watch a movie that I knew for a fact was awful. Call it a twisted sense of humor, but sometimes a movie can be so bad that it turns out to be unintentionally funny.

Think along the lines of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space.

So last night I decided to sit down to watch the universally panned Lindsay Lohan film I Know Who Killed Me. You need to know that this is not a movie review, because in order to review a film, you must actually watch the entire thing from beginning to end.

I lasted about 30 minutes.

It started out promisingly enough (for a bad movie). Since the big deal about this movie before it’s release was the fact that Lohan plays a stripper in it, the director wasted no time in getting to that. In fact the very first thing you see in the movie is Lohan on stage dressed (or not) as you would expect.

All of it quite sleazy, and for a bonus the scene ends with her sliding her hands down the pole on the stage leaving a trail of blood.

Cool, huh?

Yes, yes, it’s supposed to be melodrama, but one thing I didn’t know (or had forgotten) about this movie was that it was yet another in the now seemingly dead genre known as “torture porn.” The only movies I’ve seen in this genre have been the first couple of Saw movies and the first Hostel film. That was more than enough for me.

So although I knew that she would be the victim of foul play in the movie, it caught me by surprise when a scene popped up with her bound and gagged to what looked like an autopsy table, with a blurry figure hovering around her…

Now before I go on, keep in mind this was not in some quasi-fantasy setting like the first Saw film, where despite the apparent reality of it, the elaborateness (is that a word) of the setup and the motivation of and control by the antagonist made it seem somewhat unreal. That unreality allowed for some sort of detachment at what we were watching. Combining that with the morally questionable character of those who had been captured made what we saw at least bearable to watch.

But in I Know Who Killed Me we’re talking about not only a serial killer, but a torturer as well. In the scene I began describing above, he takes a block of dry ice and puts it over her hand, crushing it in place with a vice. In case you don’t know, dry ice is far colder than regular ice.

When he returns to her, her hand has turned black from freezing and lack of circulation, and he then proceeds to carve it up with a ragged, transparent piece of plastic. In close-up, nauseating detail, of course.

How’s that for fun?

Now when I was younger, I used to love gory horror movies, but again, the over the top, unreal nature of them made them much easier to take. Combine that with the fact that 25 years ago believe it or not, there was a morality angle to them because back then the “bad” teens died while the (usually one) “good” one survived.

But this movie… combined with the awful acting and the way it was shot and written, came off (up to the point I could stand to watch it) almost as a snuff movie. I watched it for a bit longer where in addition we were treated not only to Lohan’s amputated right arm and leg, but we get to see her in a sex scene in this state as well. I just couldn’t stand it any longer and had to turn it off.

The movie was written by Jeff Hammond and it’s his only writing credit. Let’s hope he never writes anything ever again. Director Chris Sivertson has a history of cruddy horror flicks under his belt.

So what does this have to do with my DVD player?

Well tonight I was watching a movie with my family, and the moment we popped it in (Air Force One) we started getting an intermittent blank blue screen appearing. As this movie went on it became more and more frequent, getting to the point where the player is essentially useless and must be replaced.

Granted, it was an old player - 9 years old (I was an early adopter), but it has always worked like a champ. So it decides to give up the ghost right after I put in that heinous Lindsay Lohan movie?

Coincidence? I think not.

I guess now I’ll have to buy a $50 Wal-Mart special DVD player to tide me over until Blu-Ray players drop in price to a more reasonable level around next Christmas.

I’m sorry old friend, I didn’t mean to drive you over the brink.

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