P2 (2007)

hyped garbage

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fresh and Exciting

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A-Z Horror Movie of the Day..."P2" (R - 2007 - US)Sub-Genre: Psycho/ThrillerMy Score: 6.3Cast=7 Acting=8 Plot=4 Ending=7 Story=5 Scare=6 Jump=5 F/X=6 Psycho=8 Intense=7A businesswoman is pursued by a psychopath after being locked in a parking garage on Christmas Eve. "How could you kill a poor, defenseless animal? Angela! You're really starting to pi$$ me off!" This was a pretty good psychopathic thriller...good stalker elements and solid acting by the leads. He doesn't have the contract of San Venganza, but Wes Bentley makes a solid bad guy. Since it happens on Christmas Eve, I guess you can call it a holiday horror movie. There's not much of a premise or story...just a simple thought that was well executed. Take the elevator down to P2 and give this a watch.

P2 is a little nasty picture which does what it's got and doesn't apologize for it. The action takes place in a Manhattan office block on Christmas Eve. The focus of our interest is a young woman, Angela Bridges, who's clocking out after almost everyone else has gone off to join their families and celebrate. Angela gets down to the underground parking lot of the building where her car is waiting for her, one of the very few lone vehicles still within the abandoned premises. Much to her frustration, however, the car refuses to start, so she gets out and walks over to the security guy's booth to ask for help. The man seems polite enough and addresses her problem with keenness, suggesting it could just be the battery. After hooking a portable jumper to the battery it becomes clear that the battery is not at fault. He suggests a few more tips to which she politely declines and instead decides to call for a cab. It is from then on that things start to get nightmarish.It's certainly a limited concept with nothing much to play around, but given the circumstance it pulls it off splendidly. Aside from its predictability, the move's upside is the bypass of clichés, which in my opinion, is admirable. If you're looking for a substantial psychological thriller, look somewhere else. It doesn't really delve into the loonie guy's mind and attempt to extrapolate a certain cause and effect to his behavior; it doesn't rely on background at all. What it does is pick a clearly disturbed man and a pretty and victimized young woman, put them in a confined space and let the guy act out his demented plot, keeping the viewer on edge just because we really start to like Angela. And why? Because she seems to do all the right things unlike those countless foolish heroins in peril we've seen so many times. And if she fails over and over along her fight to escape, it's because the guy's really persistent. But aren't all crazies that way?

P2 is another low budget horror movie that turns out to have wasted the time of the viewer once you finish watching. Unfortunately by that point you've already wasted an hour and a half of your life on it, so consider this review a warning.It's an essential two-hander about a typical businesswoman played by Rachel Nichols (the CONAN THE BARBARIAN remake) who finds herself locked in an underground car park at Christmas time with a crazed security guard (American BEAUTY's Wes Bentley). What follows is a predictable and very tired cat and mouse game between the two of them, one that seems to go on endlessly and repetitively until there's a final dramatic conclusion of sorts.P2 singularly manages to avoid being frightening at any point, which may be because Bentley is channelling his American BEAUTY character and doesn't seem scary at any point - sad, yes, but a decent villain, no. Nichols gets zero character development and the director seems more interested in shooting her at chest height than anything else. In desperation, a couple of extreme gore scenes are thrown into the mix to spice things up, but they don't do anything in a film that goes nowhere.

Getting trapped in her office building after work, a woman finds that she's being stalked by an obsessive maniac out to kill of those who have tormented her in the past in an attempt to win her over and she must escape before his actions get even more dangerous.This is a predictable, bland, and really not all that worthwhile starter-slasher that really offers baseline thrills of what to expect from the genre without really letting loose with an spectacular moments to bump this one up or stand out. The majority of what transpires here is so predictable and routine an effort many viewers are going to predict everything that's going on down to the letter in the exact manner as numerous other efforts before it, or is filled with so many moments that needlessly drag this one out through the stupidity of the characters to continually keep themselves in danger so the film can continue on. From her continuously hiding from him to failing to press an advantage as well as the numerous times this one carries on with a repeated series of capture, terrorize and escape only to keep repeating several times over, make this one pretty infuriating. There's some good stuff here, though, with some gore than expected in more deaths than would be the norm in such a situation, and the entire finale to this is where the best stuff occurs with the main chase through the different levels, a rather brutal series of car crashes inside the area and the stalking in the darkened, confusing structure before it gets to the grand finale confrontation which has the most fun of the whole film with its great action set-pieces. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot to this one.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.