'P2' pure P.U. that parks horror at the door
The filmmakers behind this cheap, pathetic exercise in sadistic sleaze actually compared "P2" to Steven Spielberg's classic thriller "Jaws," only in a parking garage.
It's more like "Jaws 4" (the one where Michael Caine emerges from the ocean completely dry), but bloodier and far more nonsensical.
This substandard-issue woman-in-peril thriller stars "Alias" cast member Rachel Nichols as Angela, a business executive who learns the hard way why you should never be the last employee to leave work on Christmas Eve.
In the underground parking garage of her New York office building, Angela discovers that her car won't start. Then a garage attendant knocks her out, dresses her up in a white gown that needs no help from a Wonderbra, and chains her to the desk in his office.
"You're going to like me," he tells her as he dishes up some holiday takeout.
The crazed attendant, Tom, is played by Wes Bentley, who already racked up a perfect 10 on the Creep-o-Meter when he co-starred as the weirdo neighbor kid in "American Beauty."
Hailing from the Norman Bates School for Psychos Who Act Super Polite Before They Freak Out, Tom tells Angela that in time, she'll grow to love him.
Even when she lashes out at him with the F-word? Yes.
Even when she stabs him with a fork? Yes.
Even when she drives a tire iron into the skull of his pet Rottweiler, Rocky? Yes … uh, wait just a second. Even true love has limits.
Gore fans will rejoice at "P2" for a couple of viciously violent scenes where a man gets repeatedly hit by a car and another gets immolated. Angela rips off her fingernail for a totally gratuitous freak-out moment.
But let's be honest. "P2" is pure P.U., an artless piece of crappy horror so obvious in its execution that viewers at a Tuesday screening easily predicted what would happen next.
"Watch," a woman behind me told her friend, "She's gonna drop her cell phone!" Angela dropped it.
"Oh! He's going to run over that guy!" Then, Tom ran over that guy.
"P2" will find an audience, no doubt. Viewers at the press screening had a ball laughing at the script's accidental humor, as when Tom berates Angela for calling 911.
"You're trying to get me fired, aren't you?" he says with deadpan seriousness.
Or the scene where an angry Tom transfers his frustrations to a guy he just killed. Tom chides the body, "Way to ruin Christmas, Carl!"
"P2" was produced and co-written by the director of the lavishly violent French thriller "Haute Tension" ("High Tension"). Here, he lets Franck Khalfoun, an actor from that movie, direct this dreck.
Khalfoun has no feel for either suspense or horror. He brings in scary music when there's nothing scary happening. He telegraphs the "shocks," and worries so much the opening scene will bore people that he sticks in a shot lifted from a climactic moment later on.
"P2" offers one revelation. Bentley does a great Elvis impersonation.
If only there were a movie where the King can't get a date and resorts to chaining hot women to his Cadillac.
"P2"
One star out of four
Opens today
Rachel Nichols as Angela
Wes Bentley as Thomas
Written by Franck Khalfoun, Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur. Produced by Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, Patrick Wachsberger and Erik Feig. Directed by Franck Khalfoun. A Summit Entertainment release. Rated R (graphic violence, language). Running time: 96 minutes.