[Yuletide Terrors] Day 18: P2

Throughout the month of December, we will be highlighting a film a day that has some tie into the holiday somehow. Some titles will be obvious, others won’t be. Some films will be good and, again, others won’t be. However, we think all titles are worth your time whether to give you chills inside your home or to make you drink more eggnog until you puke laughing.

For Angela (Rachel Nichols) her career is everything. She seems to thrive on long hours and late night. Even on Christmas Eve Angela is going strong. And when she’s finally on the way to her sister’s, her car won’t start. She asks the seemingly friendly security guard, Thomas (Wes Bentley) for help. He seems nice enough if maybe a bit odd. Angela becomes trapped by in the parking garage below her office, held captive by Thomas. It seems he’s been watching her for months and wants to prove his love for her. But with his outbursts of violence will Angela survive the night?

I remember when P2 came out in late 2007. I had little interest in seeing it in theaters. And all these years later it had never been on my radar. But it plays out pretty well. Shot in a operational parking garage, the setting is spooky in a cold indifferent kind of way. Concrete is unforgiving. Wes Bentley is great as the dissociative  stalker. The scene when Rachel Nichols wakes up after he chloroforms her is unsettling partly because of how relaxed his character is. And there’s a nice The biggest problem with P2 is it’s not memorable. By the 23rd I will have have forgotten how it ends.

Produced and co-written by Alexandre Aja, P2 was directed by Franck Khalfoun. I don’t know much about him other than he had a small role in Aja’s High Tension. Aja also brought on board frequent collaborators cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, writer Gregory Levasseur and composers tomandandy. Everyone is game, I was a bit surprised at how forgettable the score turned out. Khalfoun went on to direct the Maniac remake. So let’s consider P2 a dress rehearsal for that. In fact, he has one more movie coming out, Amityville The Awakening, which got bumped back from 2014 to January 2, 2015.