Release Date: April 8th, 2008
Running Time: 98 minutes

The Film

I have been very impressed with Alexandre Aja’s work in High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes. He has a knack for the gruesome and knows how to construct a nail-biting scene. After seeing the trailer for P2 I wasn’t excited, but decided to give it the benefit of the doubt due to having Aja’s name associated with it. P2 is much better than the abomination I was expecting, but still fails in one all-important way: it’s not that scary.

Written/Directed by Franck Khalfoun and co-written by Aja, P2 has a good premise and setting: parking garages late at night are creepy, that’s a fact. Something just seems to be lacking in the execution. Rachel Bridges stars as Angela, a Manhattan workaholic who is rushing to get to her sister’s for Christmas Eve. When she gets to her car, it won’t start. The parking attendant/security guard Thomas (Wes Bentley) tries to help her start the car, but no luck. After a creepy invitation to spend Christmas Eve dinner with Thomas, Angela heads to the lobby and calls a cab. When the cab finally shows up, the front doors are locked and Angela misses her ride. Angela gets clocked on the noggin and when she wakes up things have gone all wrong.

Angela regains consciousness and finds that she is chained to a chair in front of a lavish Christmas dinner, dressed in completely different clothes. The only person around is Thomas, accompanied by his vicious rottweiler. Thomas gets progressively crazier, exposing his obsession over Angela and becoming more irate as his feelings are obviously not returned. Angela escapes and the film turns into a race for survival. Angela has to find a way out of the parking garage before Thomas kills her, or worse.

P2 does have a few very cool moments. It has one of the most brutal scenes of a car smashing a person that I have ever seen. The psychotic dog also has quite the death scene (sorry for the minor spoilers, but animal lovers should be warned). The setting is shot very well, showing the immense area but also the isolation that you feel when there is no escape. Unfortunately, P2 cannot sustain the fear. Thomas is more of an everyman psycho and hardly as terrifying as many other horror villains. Also, for a horror film, there isn’t a very high body count, which means the film is more of a chase/stalking story than a slasher film. The filmmakers do try, but after so many failed attempts by Angela to escape from an uninteresting villain, you may find yourself bored rather than scared.

The DVD

The video is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, and for a film that takes place in an extremely dark setting, the transfer is very good. Compression artifacts and grain aren’t real problems and the few moments with colors come off nicely as well.

The audio is offered in English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound with English/Spanish subtitles. It is a solid horror mix, featuring plenty of positional audio, creepy atmospheric noises, hard bass hits, and balanced dialogue. The filmmakers understand that much of the success of a horror film can rely on its use of sound so this mix does not disappoint.

The Extras

Commentary is offered with Director Franck Khalfoun, Producer Alexandre Aja, and Producer Gregory Levasseur. It is an all around average effort that doesn’t really explode with passion or give you tremendous insight into the production.

“A New Level of Terror” is a 12-minute making-of featurette with generic interviews and behind-the-scenes clips. The information is minimal so the only real merit to this featurette is seeing the short production clips.

“Tension Nouveau: Presenting Franck Khalfoun” is a 3-minute interview with the director gushing about the film. It is too short to be a good introduction to Khalfoun’s style and should have been combined with “A New Level of Terror.”

“Designing Terror” is a 5-minute piece on the production design and contains more solid tidbits about the production that the other featurettes combined. If you are only going to check out one of the special features, this is the one.

The Trailer and Previews are offered as well.

Final Thoughts

P2 has a few moments, but it never generates a truly terrifying mood and thus falls a bit flat. It’s a great late-night rental, but that’s about it.