INTRO: What’s your idea of the perfect Christmas Eve? For parking garage security guard Thomas Barclay, it would be to spend the evening with his crush, businesswoman Angela Bridges. He has a nice dinner planned, he has a dress picked out for Angela, he has the chloroform to knock her out with, the chains to hold her in place, and his dog Rocky to keep them company. Of course, Angela does not like Thomas’s Christmas plans at all. The story of her struggle to get away from her twisted stalker and escape from the parking garage is told in the 2007 film P2, which happens to be the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw.
CREATORS / CAST: P2 marked the feature directorial debut of Franck Khalfoun, who first got into the entertainment industry as an actor. Underwhelmed with how his acting career was going, Khalfoun started directing as well, and had some success directing hip hop music videos. Along the way, he met fellow French filmmakers Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur. When they made the horror film High Tension, with Aja directing from a script he wrote with Levasseur, they put Khalfoun in the movie as an ill-fated gas station attendant. That movie was a major breakthrough for Aja and Levasseur, with a lot of viewers naming Aja as a director to keep an eye on. He could be the next big master of horror. High Tension got so much attention, Wes Craven even picked Aja to direct a remake of his film The Hills Have Eyes. Aja did, again working from a script he wrote with Levasseur, and that remake was even more well-received than High Tension was. Riding high on their back-to-back successes, Aja and Levasseur decided to get into producing and give their friend Khalfoun a chance to direct a feature.
The basic concept of P2 was ripped from the headlines. There had been reports about women being attacked in parking garages in Paris, and a parking garage struck Aja and Levasseur as being the perfect setting for a horror thriller. They approached Khalfoun with the idea, and the three of them crafted the story together. First, they had to figure out who the villain would be. They considered making him the mysterious, masked slasher type – but Khalfoun was more interested in the idea of the villain being a regular guy. Someone who’s good looking, a bit charming, and then turns out to be a total creep. That’s how the villain became Thomas Barclay, parking garage security guard, who is also an Elvis impersonator in his downtime. Thomas’s job is to sit in his office, accompanied only by his dog Rocky, and watch the security monitors. Day in and day out. As charming as he seems, Thomas has some serious issues, and spending all this time alone at work has only made his issues worse. While he’s been looking at the monitors in the subterranean parking garage, one particular person in the office building above has caught his eye. A businesswoman named Angela Bridges. A Maine farm girl who has worked her way up to drafting multi-million dollar contracts in New York City. Christmas is approaching, and on Christmas Eve the building is going to be closing down for three days. Thomas decides this is the time to make his move. Angela is going to spend the holiday break with him, whether she likes it or not.
Thomas really buys into the hope that Angela is going to fall for him, despite the fact that he has drugged her and chained her up. He thinks she’ll be appreciative when he murders the co-worker who made a drunken pass at her at a party, even though she has already accepted a heartfelt apology from the guy. And he definitely never imagined how hard Angela will fight to get away from him. Or how determined and crafty she is in her attempts to escape. Thomas repeatedly blames people for ruining his Christmas, not taking into account that he is ruining Christmas for others by abducting and murdering people. Angela definitely ruins his Christmas plans. He envisioned them having a romantic dinner together. Instead, their time together turns into an action-packed fight for survival.
Khalfoun and his collaborators did a great job of writing the Thomas and Angela characters. Then the perfect actors were chosen to bring them to life on the screen. Wes Bentley, best known for his roles in the Best Picture winner American Beauty and the hit TV series Yellowstone, was cast as Thomas, and Rachel Nichols, who had recently played a prominent role in the TV show Alias, was cast as Angela. Bentley and Nichols both did excellent work as these characters. Bentley is really entertaining to watch as Thomas, and Nichols turns Angela into a strong heroine we root for throughout. It was very important that these roles be flawlessly cast, because Thomas and Angela are the only two people on screen for the majority of the movie. Bentley and Nichols carry the film on their shoulders… and the story puts their characters through a really tough night.
BACKGROUND: P2 was a gruelling film for the cast and crew to work on, because it was actually shot in a real, functioning parking garage in Toronto. When the garage closed for the night, the filmmakers would move in and work there until the place re-opened in the morning. The production schedule called for twenty-five days of night shoots, which wore everyone down. Especially since they were working inside a dirty location that smelled like exhaust fumes. And the physicality of her role left Nichols battered and bruised. Many of the bruises we see on Angela aren’t makeup, those are bruises Nichols got while filming scenes. Her character goes from being clean and neat in business clothes to being soaking wet and covered with dirt and blood. Her own blood and the blood of others. She also undergoes a wardrobe change against her will. After using chloroform to knock her out, Thomas removes her business attire and puts her in a white dress, which shows a lot of cleavage.
The white dress was a compromise Nichols and the filmmakers were able to reach. In the original script, Angela was stripped down and wearing nothing but a negligee. Nichols refused to endure the parking garage action while wearing something so skimpy. So she chose the dress, which had a bra sewed into the top because Nichols didn’t want to run around without a bra for twenty-five days. She also made sure that it was in her contract that she would not do any nudity. That included making sure the white dress wouldn’t show anything when it gets wet. Shots of Angela wielding an axe while showing cleavage are popular images from the film. That image even made it onto the posters. But the actress made sure cleavage is all anyone would see. And it’s completely understandable, because Nichols definitely needed more coverage and clothing support to do everything Angela goes through. The action wasn’t easy, even in the bra-equipped dress.
As Nichols told Shock Till You Drop, “This was the most demanding job I ever had. … I was in a dress with bare feet and they made these weird pads for the bottom of my feet. My arms are bare, my legs are bare, I’m wearing handcuffs for most of it. The handcuffs were real throughout, even when I’m driving the car. The bruises were unbelievable. As hostile and angry as I was, and as much as I wanted to kill Franck, Alex, and Greg, I think it actually really ended up helping make the whole thing real for me.”
Aja passed the directing duties over to Khalfoun on this one, but he and Levasseur were very hands-on producers. They were on set throughout the production, shooting second unit. Working with Khalfoun and the cast. Helping the actors dig into the minds of their characters. And helping the director figure out how to stick to the schedule while getting everything they needed for the story. Aja guided P2 every step of the way, from script to screen. But this movie didn’t get as much attention, or have as much success, as his previous two films.
P2 was released by Summit Entertainment, a company that doesn’t even exist as a standalone distributor anymore. Summit was very supportive of the project – the company president loved the terrifying setting and the strength of the protagonist, who refuses to let herself be victimized. But Summit had a lot of trouble getting their films to catch on with audiences. Many of their releases were flops. They got lucky a couple times – Summit was the studio that brought the world the Twilight films and Best Picture winner The Hurt Locker, but by the time the last Twilight movie was released, Summit had been bought out by Lionsgate.
P2 was one of Summit’s flops. Made on a budget of three-point-five million, the movie earned just under eight million at the global box office. The release date was November 9th, which is reasonable for a movie that’s set on Christmas Eve. But since this Christmas movie also happens to be a horror story, maybe it would have done better if it had been released a few weeks earlier, during the Halloween season. It probably also could have used a better title. Because even though the marketing materials promised the film would take you to a new level of terror… P2 still doesn’t mean much to the average movie-goer. Unless they happened to park on the second level of a parking garage on their way to the theatre.
So few people turned out to see P2 on the big screen, it was a record-breaking bomb. Released on two thousand, one hundred and thirty-one screens, it had a per screen average of just nine hundred and seventy-seven dollars over its opening weekend. One of the all-time worst wide release failures. That’s not a distinction P2 deserved to have placed on it. It’s a well-crafted thriller that would have a much larger fan base if only it could catch the attention of more viewers.
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: When the movie was first announced, Aja told Fangoria that it was designed to be a “rollercoaster ride that lets you live inside Angela’s nightmare.” And Khalfoun did a great job of making the finished film come off like a thrill ride. As the director explained to Shock Till You Drop, “It was about making the rhythm right so you can start off calmly and end with the speed of a freight train. By the end this movie is non-stop action. It’s a horror film with tons of action and gags, a little comedy. It was my job to create valleys and ridges throughout the whole thing.”
P2 is exceptionally well paced. It starts out small. Thomas has Angela chained up in his office, and she spends several minutes trying to talk her way out of the situation. We watch the characters bounce well written, interesting dialogue off of each other for several minutes. Then things go completely off the rails. The tension builds, the feeling of suspense gets more intense, the violence escalates, Angela’s desperation grows. And Khalfoun, Aja, and Levasseur came up with a lot of ideas for set pieces that keep the situation exciting and engaging. The setting may not sound very interesting at first. How much can possibly be done in the open, concrete levels of an underground parking garage? But you may be surprised at how much the filmmakers were able to accomplish within those confined spaces. Including cat and mouse stalking sequences, chases, a scene with a flooding elevator, and even some vehicular smash-ups.
You’ll likely also be impressed by the performances delivered by Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols. These two became friends off set, but once they stepped onto set and Bentley switched into character, Nichols found him to be legitimately scary. Some interviewers asked Bentley if he had drawn inspiration from classics like Psycho or The Shining when preparing for his role. He had to admit that he hadn’t even seen either of those movies yet. His performance as Thomas wasn’t based on anything he had seen before. He played it naturally, and it’s captivating to see him bring the different sides of the character to life. Thomas can be nice and charming. He can be intense and violent. He can throw screaming tantrums and self-pity parties. He can take a break to dance to some Elvis music. Nichols is also fully believable for every step of her character’s journey from proper businesswoman to a blood-splattered warrior smashing TVs and cameras with her axe.
At Aja’s suggestion, the musical duo of tomandandy were hired to compose the score. Khalfoun wanted a classic thriller score, and tomandandy provided just that. Their music compliments the scenes nicely, and helps build up the thrills. Cinematographer Maxime Alexandre and the set decorators also did an incredible job of keeping the parking garage setting visually interesting, and even managed to give the movie a very Christmasy feel. Even though it was filmed in the summer and so much of it takes place in concrete tunnels.
BEST SCENE(S): For fans of dialogue, the scene where Angela first wakes up in Thomas’s office is a holiday treat. They’re both trying to keep the situation calm at this point. Thomas is trying to get Angela to enjoy her time with him, while being chained to a table. She tries to talk her way out of his office in any way she can. He forces her to cancel plans she had with her family in New Jersey. She struggles to sound normal during this call, when she’s actually scared and crying. It’s a great showcase of Nichols and Bentley’s acting abilities… and then things get violent for the first time.
There is plenty of violence throughout P2. One of the most intense sequences for both Angela and the actress playing her is the one where Thomas sets loose his dog Rocky. Rocky was actually played by a few different Rottweilers, and Bentley had no problem bonding with them. But Nichols is afraid of dogs, and remained afraid of the Rottweilers during their time on set. So when you see Angela being chased through the parking garage by Rocky, or wrestling with the dog in a parked car, the fear Nichols is showing was real.
PARTING SHOT: A lot of movie fans like to watch the same movies around the holidays. A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Black Christmas, the list goes on and on… but one movie that doesn’t get listed often enough is P2. All these years after it came and went at the box office, the movie still hasn’t received enough recognition. And it’s about time we turn that around. More movie fans need to add P2 to their annual viewing lists. It’s worth revisiting every December for some chills and thrills. So head down into that parking garage and spend some time with Thomas and Angela. You won’t have a blue Christmas if you add P2 to your holiday celebrations.
A couple previous episodes of the Best Horror Movie You Never Saw series can be seen below. To see more, and to check out some of our other shows, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!