A business woman has to work late on Christmas Eve, when she finally finishes and heads down to the parking garage, her car won't start. She asks the parking attendant to help her, but what she doesn't realize is that he is a deranged psychopath who has been watching her and wanting to be with her for quite some time now.
I had pretty low expectations for this film, after all it is set in a parking garage. Yet P2 surprised me, not only was it suspenseful, it had great performances and a pretty surprising amount of violence. With a lot of horror/thrillers these days they seem to skim out on the bloody violence, but P2 uses it very well here. It's not overly done, only used sparingly. When it is used, it's gruesome, which adds to the ick factor. P2 gets a thumbs up from me because of that.
Wes Bently plays the parking attendant and he plays crazy very well. His calm demeanour is even more sinister than what a loud lunatic would be. He wants to be Rachel Nichols' friend desperately, he is madly in love with her. In his sick and twisted way, they need/have to be together. He is there to help her realize this and is willing to kill those who either get in the way or mistreat her. This takes us into our first death and one of the most gruesome parts of the film. For those that are squeamish, they should look away because one characters gets beaten repeatedly and then some. I find myself liking Bently more and more with every film I see him in, with the exception of Ghost Rider...ew.
Rachel Nichols is the female lead, she is suppose to be the clichéd blonde bimbo in distress. P2 switches the tables around, no longer are we stuck with a stupid character who falls over when they are running away from the killer. We are given a smart and determined business woman, who is constantly showing off her cleavage. Yes, this movie for some reason has put our heroine in a white dress that was most likely done to please the male audience.
P2 isn't for everyone, I'm sure there are dozens of things wrong with it. Such as why doesn't she simply pull the fire alarm, just for starters. But the film did what it was suppose to do. Put a female in danger, have a strange and sadistic murderer follow her and the film becomes a cat and mouse game. In the endless list of films that do this, P2 is surprisingly well done. It's definitely underrated as many people seemed to have overlooked it. I wouldn't suggest you rush out and rent this today, but if you were ever interested even a little bit, check it out. That is, if you've ever heard of it.
