P2 (film)

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P2
Official P2 film poster.
Directed by	Franck Khalfoun
Produced by	Alexandre Aja Erik Feig Grégory Levasseur Patrick Wachsberger
Written by	Alexandre Aja Franck Khalfoun Grégory Levasseur
Starring	Rachel Nichols Simon Reynolds Wes Bentley Grace Lynn Kung Paul Sun-Hyung Lee
Music by	tomandandy
Cinematography	Maxime Alexandre
Distributed by	Independent Films (Netherlands) (theatrical) P2 Productions Summit Entertainment (worldwide) (all media) Tartan Films (UK) (theatrical) Vivendi Visual Entertainment (co-production)
Release date(s)	November 9, 2007
Country	United States
Language	English
IMDb profile

P2 is a horror/thriller directed by Franck Khalfoun. The film is written by Alexandra Aja, Grégory Levasseur, and the director, Khalfoun; the three have worked on other genre films as well, including the 2006 remake The Hills Have Eyes. P2 was released theatrically in the United States on November 9, 2007. The name of the film comes from the parking garage level in which the film takes place. P2 was rated "R" by the MPAA for "strong violence/gore, terror and language."^[1]

1 Cast
2 Plot
3 Production
4 Reception
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Cast

Rachel Nichols ... Angela Bridges
Simon Reynolds ... Bob Harper
Wes Bentley ... Thomas
Philip Akin...Karl
Grace Lynn Kung ... Elevator Gal
Paul Sun-Hyung Lee ... Man in Elevator

[edit] Plot

The story centers on a corporate climber Angela (Nichols) who gets stuck working late on Christmas Eve before leaving to attend a family holiday party. On her way into the parking garage (P2), she greets the main lobby security guard, Karl. She gets into the parking garage, only to discover that her car won't start. After receiving some assistance (to no avail) from the security guard named Thomas (Bentley) and turning down his offer to spend Christmas with him, she calls for a taxi and waits in the lobby. When the taxi arrives, she discovers she's locked in the lobby and, with Karl nowhere to be found, quickly rushes back to the garage to find Thomas. The lights soon shut down and Thomas assaults Angela, knocking her out with chloroform on a rag.

Later, Angela awakens in a drunken haze inside Thomas's office, her ankle chained to the table, and Thomas presenting her with a Christmas dinner of turkey and mashed patatos. He is curious about her life and asks many questions about her past. Thomas mentions he is currently reading Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises. Thomas emplies that he loves Angela despite her many sins, the same way the novel's main character loves his girlfriend. Despite Angela's pleas and threats, Thomas continues to hold her there against her will, even forcing her to call her family and lie about an illness so that no one will come looking for her. Thomas decides to take Angela for a "drive," and while he is unlocking her chains, she drives a fork into his back, but is unable to escape.

Handcuffing her wrists together behind her back, they climb into his car and drive down to P4. There, they find a fellow coworker, Jim (Akin), tied to an office chair. Jim once attempted to get physical with Angela in an elevator after having too much to drink at an office Christmas party, and having seen this on the security videos, Thomas presumed Angela wanted revenge. When she refuses, Thomas beats Jim repeatedly with a flashlight and then rams Jim into the wall with his car multiple times, causing his intestines to rupture out of his body and ultimately killing him. Amidst the murder, Angela is able to escape from the car.

Once she has run a considerable distance away from Thomas, Angela manages to slide her legs through her handcuffed wrists so her arms are cuffed in the front of her body instead of the back.

While Thomas hides the evidence of Jim's death, Angela rushes back to the office for her cell phone, and also steals some key cards. She finds phone signal near a gate and attempts to call for help, but drops the phone on the other side and has to leave it behind. She takes refuge in an elevator shaft by using the emergency stop between floors. She uses the emergency button to call for help. On the line is a man with a heavy South Asian accent. She pleads for him to call 911 but the man tries to convince her Thomas was just trying to help her. Angela then understands the voice is really Thomas's. He then begs her to come out of the elevator but she refuses. Thomas then forces her to leave by flushes her out by flooding the elevator with a fire hose from a higher floor.As the elevator floods a shadowy object falls from the ceiling later showing it is Karl's persumly dead body.When the elevator finally reaches the next floor it bursts open spilling Angela and Karl into the hallway.Hoping that Karl still may be alive, She tries to awaken him but he wont arouse. Angela then realizes to save her own life she must leave him.(Karl is later seen still on the ground where Angela left him, but now there is a large gash in the side of his head,fresh and maybe evidence he was still alive in the flooded elevator.Thomas then blames him for ruining Christmas and leaves his body in the flooded hall)

Angela manages to escape into a shadowy corner of the garage to hide from Thomas, and in the meantime, he plays Elvis songs throughout the entire garage to torment her. Realizing he is keeping track of her with the security cameras, she breaks open an emergency fire axe and begins to destroy them while making her way to his office, prepared to fight. Once entering, she finds video playing of Thomas groping her breasts while she was drugged, and, blinded by her fury she smashes the TV with the emergency fire ax. Thomas then appears and ambushes Angela with a taser.

Meanwhile, two police men arrive at the garage and want to patrol the area for anything unusual.Through most of their patrol (unknowingly to them)Thomas has the fire axe,hiding it from view when he speaks to them through his office door,Ready to us it. Espeacilly when they come across the boards layed over Jim's leftover blood splatter.They don't check behind it or find anything suspicious about it. Angela soon awakens, realizing she is locked in the trunk of her vehicle. She breaks free and rushes to catch the police before they leave but to no avail, and instead, encounters Thomas and his attack dog. He releases the dog on her, but she smashes the window of a Lincoln Towncar and hides inside. When the dog assaults her inside, she stabs it in the head repeatidly with the tire iron she used to escape from the trunk. Once the dog is dead Angela (now covered in blood) stumbles to a nearby rental car office and calls 911. Thomas soon comes after her, but she manages to spray him in the face with some sort of chemical, taking a handful of rental car keys, and driving away in one of them.

On her way to the exit, she is suddenly side-swiped by Thomas in another vehicle, leading up to a game of chicken in which Angela wins. However, in the heat of the chase, Angela flips the vehicle and is presumably knocked unconscious. Thomas opens the door to retrieve her, but having faked her injury, she stabs him in the eye with an envelope opener, chokes him with her handcuff chains, then uses his keys to unhancuff her self and then handcuff him to the wrecked car. Taking his taser, she goes to leave, until Thomas insults her but then notices she is about to ignite a stream of gasoline leaking from the car. He then pleads with her, "why can't we just be friends?" Angela has no mercy for Thomas so she quickly ignites the stream of gasoline, engulfing the car and Thomas in flames. She watches him burn and listens to his screams for a miniute, then turns around and leaves.

With Thomas dead, Angela limps out of the garage, onto the snowy streets of New York City, and towards the lights of several ambulences.

[edit] Production

The film re-unites Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, and Franck Khalfoun who had previously worked together as director, writer and editor, respectively, on the 2006 film The Hills Have Eyes. Aja explains of the film, comparing it to his previous work, French slasher film High Tension, "With a strong plot in the vein of High Tension, P2 gives us a chance to further explore the survival aspect of the terror movie."^[2]

Filmed in Toronto, P2 began principal photography on August 14, 2006 and continued filming through late 2006.^[2]

It was intended to be featured in the UK based London FrightFest Film Festival in August 2007,^[3] but was pulled out soon before its date and replaced with Teeth.^[4]

The very first screening played at the Long Beach Town Center, and was met with less than favorable reactions from the test audience.^{[citation needed]}

The first test screening received about 70% positive feedback, considered by Hollywood to be sub-par. After making adjustments, the second test screening achieved around 86% positive feedback, according to OTX Research (the company that held the screenings).^{[citation needed]}

P2 was featured in an ad campaign on the social networking website Myspace, where a trailer for the film could also be streamed.^[5]

P2 was released on DVD on April 8th. It includes an anamorphic widescreen transfer with dolby 5.1 surround. Special features are confirmed to include a cast and crew commentary and 3 behind the scenes featurettes.

[edit] Reception

The film received generally negative reviews from critics. As of November 10, 2007 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 36% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 44 reviews.^[6] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 12 reviews.^[7]

Production company Psychic Bunny produced a parody of the P2 trailer when commercials for the film brought to mind the Panasonic camera storage method, which also goes by the name "P2". Psychic Bunny referred to the P2 film as "one of the biggest flops in movie history".^[8]