12 Days Of Christmas Horror (Day 9)

Frank Khalfoun’s P2 swaps the cosy domestic environment of so many Yuletide slashers with a harsh cityscape to deliver a sordid night of festive stalking. Though P2 doesn’t exhibit the full creative flare of Khalfoun’s Maniac remake, it does cherish the dingy alien atmosphere of the underground garage, a locale rarely milked for its horror potential. Locking all the doors and windows, then ditching home-sick Angela (Rachel Nichols) in the dark sub-basement, P2 seems to relish putting its heroine through a cat and mouse game we’re never really sure she’ll survive.
This is in part thanks to the team of writers; Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, and Khalfoun himself, who previously worked together on impressive rehash, The Hills Have Eyes. Aja’s own particular brand of French extremism, exhibited in Switchblade Romance, pops up a few times throughout but not so much that the film loses its edge. There’s still plenty of bitch-dogs, water-lifts, and guys being mashed to a pulp with cars, to keep you on your toes.
Khalfoun has a bone to pick with the male audience over their objectification and harassment of women in the workplace. Wes Bentley’s deluded night watchman Tom makes a wonderfully convincing loner, sliding through the car park one second like a silent stalker then shouting after Rachel Nichols’ the next like a child screaming for his mother. There’s a touch of the Christmas Camp on show though, Tom plays classic Christmas tunes over the underground tanoids to spook his would-be date, mimes along to Elvis’ ‘Blue Christmas’, and tazes his way through a night of Christmas cat and mouse. Maybe, Bentley is the poster boy for not doing too many night shifts?

Khalfoun’s film doesn’t reach the bleak madness of Inside, or even the scares of Black Christmas, but it does take full advantage of the urban environment. The endless office spaces, the many lit and unlit windows of the city scape are returned to again and again to remind us that this is just one instance in one part of a massive city. The question, suitably worrying for the season, seems to be where else is it happening, rather than when will it happen again.