P2

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Just another day at the office.

P2 is a 2007 Horror film directed by Franck Khalfoun, written by Alexandre Aja, and starring Rachel Nichols and Wes Bentley.

Angela is a young businesswoman stuck working late at the office on Christmas Eve. When she finally decides to head home to a family Christmas gathering, she unfortunately finds that her car won't start, even after help from Thomas, the only security guard left on duty. Thomas, who will be stuck in the building over the three-day Christmas break, invites Angela to have Christmas dinner with him; to his chagrin, she rejects his offer. With no other choice left, Angela calls a taxi, but when it arrives, she realizes the doors to the lobby are locked. Angela heads back down to the Parking Garage to find Thomas so that he may open the doors for her. However, once she reaches P2, the lights begin to shut off, allowing Thomas to sneak up on Angela and knock her out cold with chloroform. When Angela wakes up, she finds herself chained to a table and forced into accepting Thomas's dinner invitation.


Tropes used in P2 include:
  • Angry Guard Dog: Rocky, Thomas's Rottweiler, who manages to bite Angela's leg.
  • Berserk Button: Angela's got a few, including seeing the video of Thomas feeling her up when she was unconscious and Thomas calling her the c-word.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Male example. Thomas seems like an eager and helpful Nice Guy at first, but becomes more and more of a desperate psychopath as he loses control over Angela.
  • Cacophony Cover-Up: When the police arrive and patrol the levels of the parking garage, Thomas blasts Christmas music over the speakers to drown out Angela's screams for help from the trunk of a car.
  • Can You Hear Me Now?: Angela would be fine if only she could call the police…but there's no signal. Justified in that she's in an underground parking lot.
  • Captive Date: Thomas's intentions for Angela. Takes a turn for the worse though once she manages to escape.
  • Combat Stilettos: Subverted. Before making a break from the car while Thomas is ramming Jim's body into the wall, Angela slips off her heels. She spends the rest of the movie running around barefoot.
  • Country Matters: Thomas, demonstrating just how insane he is, decides that the best time to use this insult is when the woman he's been terrorizing all night is walking away with his taser after cuffing him to a wrecked car that's leaking gasoline. Predictably, this is the final straw that provokes Angela into using the taser to ignite the gasoline.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Thomas's punishment for Jim, the coworker who drunkenly tried to molest Angela after the Christmas party.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: The film takes place over a single Christmas Eve night.
  • Eye Scream: After losing the game of chicken against Thomas, Angela Plays Possum, and when Thomas checks on her to see if she's okay, she jams a sharp object into his eye.
  • Fan Service/Fan Disservice: Rachel Nichols spends nearly the whole film running around in just a white dress with her impressive cleavage on display...while being chased around a deserted parking garage by a creepy, evil security guard with a gun and a Rottweiler, getting bloodied up and dirtier in the process.
  • Go-Go Enslavement: Although not as Stripperific as it could be, the dress that Thomas puts Angela in before she wakes up is very low cut, allowing for a spectacular display of cleavage.
  • Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: The Christmas variant.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: Acknowledged later in the film. Angela stumbles in on a video of Thomas feeling her up after having dressed her. Sets off one of her Berserk Buttons.
  • Instant Sedation: Thomas uses a rag and chloroform to knock out Angela. She's out within a minute and stays asleep long enough for him to dress and chain her up and set the table.
  • Magical Security Cam: Averted. The footage on the security cameras are from a single angle and are badly lit.
  • Matchlight Danger Revelation: While going through the parking garage, Angela trips and drops her cell phone. As she picks it up, the light from the screen illuminates her stalker and now kidnapper, who proceeds to knock her out and drag her away.
  • My Car Hates Me: Angela's BMW. Justified in that it's implied that Thomas sabotaged it so Angela would be stuck in the building during Christmas Eve.
  • Not Good with Rejection: Thomas, of the Stalker with a Crush variety, veering into Ax Crazy.
  • Parking Garage: The setting of the film, filmed in an actual parking garage as a bonus.
  • Playing Possum: Performed by Angela after a game of chicken, allowing her to stab Thomas in the eye, grab his keys to uncuff herself, and then cuff him to the car door.
  • Police Are Useless: Angela manages to get a signal long enough to call 911. When the cops arrive, they drive around the parking garage to see if anything is amiss. However, they don't find anything wrong, since Angela has been tased and locked in a trunk.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Merry Christmas, Thomas."
  • Sadistic Choice: Thomas gives Angela two choices in dealing with Jim, a drunken coworker who hit on Angela after a Christmas party: she can beat him to a bloody pulp or Thomas can ram Jim with his car.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Thomas.
  • Stalking Is Love: Thomas expects Angela to be attracted to him even after he kidnaps her, chases her through the parking lot, kills two of her coworkers, locks her in the trunk of a car, and sics his dog on her.
  • Took a Level In Badass: Angela. After failing to call the police or escape from the parking garage, Angela is driven to knock out the security cameras with an axe, escape from a locked trunk with only a crowbar, kill Thomas's dog with said crowbar, and steal a car and end up in a game of chicken with Thomas. This isn't even counting her Playing Possum, cuffing Thomas to the car, and finally setting him on fire with gasoline and a taser when he calls her a cunt.
  • Waking Up Elsewhere: Angela, twice. Once in the security office after Thomas kidnaps her. Another time when Thomas tases her and she ends up in the trunk of a car.
  • Wet Sari Scene: The elevator scene. Thomas floods the elevator with a fire hose when Angela stops it between floors, and throws a dead body in for good measure in order to drive Angela out and back into the parking lot.