P2 Review

P2 (2007): A film by Franck Khalfoun

P2 is not quite as good as classic horror films like Night of the Living Dead or Suspiria, but it is far superior to many horror films as of late. Critics tore the film apart, many passing it off as just another schlocky and campy B-movie, worthy of nothing less than harsh words and box office failure. The film, however, displays a tremendous amount of promise in the first few scenes but begins to slowly and gradually lose that promise until around the 3/4 mark, when the audience is effectively exhausted and the film amounts to nothing more than just another horror film. Upcoming films should use P2 as a wobbly foundation upon which to rebuild the structure of modern horror.

Angela (Rachel Nichols) is stuck working late on Christmas Eve, her asshole boss making her redo reports over and over again in her large office inside a Manhattan skyscraper, her family nagging at her to get home as soon as possible so they can start dinner, and one of her co-workers sincerely apologizing for groping her at a recent Christmas party. She eventually gets out of her office and down to the parking garage to head to her family party, but...her car won't start. Sigh.

She begins to try and find more and more ways out of the parking garage - more likely than not her version of purgatory - and we slowly begin to sense that, failed attempt after failed attempt, something more sinister is at work here. Enter Thomas, the kindly parking garage attendant who helps Angela out and figures since she can't leave, why not have a quaint Christmas Eve dinner in the attendant's office? No, she says, she can't dissapoint her family. But maybe some other time. You see where this is going, I'm sure.

Thomas, of course, has been stalking Angela, and knows just about everything about her. He knocks her out, ties her up, and makes her eat that quaint dinner with him. Thomas, played with insane over-the-topness by Wes Bentley, has a Norman Bates-esque feel about him. He is seemingly gentle, kind, quite a good conversationalist, with boyish good looks and a naive innocence, but he's, well...just a little insane, is all.

And the cat-and-mouse game begins.

Although rather formulaic and predictable, the movie displays enormous potential for topical issues, in particular sexual harrasment. Unfortunately, P2 fails to say (or try to say) anything relevant about the glass ceiling, or sexual harassment, or anything about feminism in general. Such a shame that a technically-competent and, yes, even sometimes suspenseful film could waste its nearly two hours teasing us with social commentary but never quite reaching it. This film is not to be taken as 28 Weeks Later or the aforementioned Night of the Living Dead should be. P2 is a horror movie through and through, both on the surface and in the shallow subtexts, without socio-political commentary. The poorly-lit parking garage at night, a classic fear for women (and men for that matter), would have been a wonderful place to explore the troublesome state of women in the workplace.

The film is high on gore in individual scenes; the violence is well-contained into one horrifically gruesome death and a few shorter scenes of quick but bloody stabs, punches, etc. Thankfully, except for that gratuitous scene, the movie is quite low on sadism. Director Khalfoun manages to ramp up the creepy thanks to a few classic Christmas songs and keeps the claustrophobic feel throughout the film, lost in a maze of cars and identical-looking levels of the parking garage.

Also notable is P2's way of manipulating us to pity Thomas while simultaneously hoping for Angela's escape. Thomas outwardly admits he's lonely - he is a graveyard shift parking garage attendant, after all. We feel bad. He even says he would never want to hurt Angela, which seems to be true at first, but is quite untrue as we later learn. I, for one, genuinely believed Tom's promise, keeping in mind he never said anything about hurting those around her. This interesting pact is not to be seen later in the movie. Was it to make the film more of a horror film and the threat to Angela more real, or did he never really plan on keeping his promise in the first place? I'm not sure.

We understand Tom is lonely, but do people as seemingly kind and good-looking as him really have to go to this length to get a girl to have dinner with him?

Feels like it sometimes, doesn't it?