I think if horror fans made one mistake last year it was not supporting this movie, P2 while it was in theaters. I myself did not have much faith in this film at all either. The trailer looked like every other horror/thriller film out there. The film was not promoted heavily by the studio, and lets face it, the posters and artwork were not all that great. However the old saying you can’t judge a book by it’s cover applies here, as P2 is actually a pretty good movie.
P2 stars Rachel Nichols as a workaholic named Angela Bridges. It is Christmas Eve and Angela is trying her best to get out of work on time to meet up with her family for the holidays. However, when Angela gets to her car in the parking garage on level P2. Her car refuses to start. With no one left in the building except a lonely security guard (Wes Bentley). Angela asks him for his help and he agrees to help her jump her car, but when that fails he lets her back into the building to call a cab. But when the cab arrives Angela can’t seem to get out of the building. She then becomes a victim of a deadly crush, one that makes her a prisoner in her own office building which is about to get deadly.
The script for P2 is written very well. It does have a few flaws which involve some cliché things we’ve all seen in horror movies before, but for the most part the script does give us some very well written suspenseful scenes. One good thing I noticed about the script that makes this movie different from conventional horror films, is that the characters were written in such a way that they were both not stupid. They were both killer and heroine were smart in this film, and neither of them made a series of stupid mistakes for the sake of driving the plot forward. The character development was very good as was the dialogue. the script felt more like a series of events that could really happen, rather than being a series of impossible events happening in one full night.
The acting in this film is not that bad. The film has a very small cast, and it mainly revolves around Rachel Nichol’s character of Angela and Wes Bentley’s character of Thomas. Both actors were very good in their roles. Wes Bentley has a great look when it comes to playing the bad guy. His look says it all, just like it did when he was in Soul Survivors and Ghost Rider. The small supporting cast was pretty good as well, but one can’t forget to give credit to the dog in the movie either. He was one badass dog.
The films production value was pretty decent. There is not really much to talk about as the whole film seemed to be shot on location for the most part in an office building for some scenes and the majority of it taking place in a parking garage. The stunts in the film were pretty good, although it’s nothing we all haven’t seen played out in other films, and the special make-up effects were pretty much limited to some scenes involving excusive amounts of blood and some swelling. So for the most part the production value is good and does what it needs to do to make the film look real.
Overall, I was very surprised that P2 was actually a pretty decent movie. It does have a few flaws, but for the most part it was very entertaining. I think most people looked at this movies as being just another PG-13 horror film made for teenagers to flock too, but it actually is smarter than the average teenage horror film. It’s a decent film with some pretty suspenseful moments and is well worth checking out on DVD.
The DVD has a few special features which include audio commentary with the director and filmmakers involved in the film, and a few documentaries about the making of the movie and a short feature that talks about director Franck Khalfoun.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
