P2 (2007) or, Parking Deck Horrors

♥♥

 

A scantily dressed young female is caught in a dark parking garage on this ill-boding poster for Franck Khalfoun's P2

A zealous office worker is going home late for Christmas, but she then has her work cut out for her in managing to escape the dodgy underground parking garage where a psychopath holds her captive.

 

P2 is written by co-writer/co-producers Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur (Maniac (2012), both) and debuting co-writer/director Franck Khalfoun (Prey (2019)).

Lead Rachel Nichols (Breach (2020)) has big, impressive breasts prominently pushed up in her tight dress, while she runs desperately around in mortal danger through most of the film, but she can't salvage the flat and dull psycho ride that's P2. Wes Bentley (Final Girl (2015)) plays the creepy and loud maniac who isn't a character with depth or considerable interest for audiences. The gloomy survival at stake in P2 becomes quite gory but it remains too one-dimensional and commonplace for it to really grab you, despite Khalfoun throwing everything plus the wrench into this first effort beast of his.

 

Related posts:

 

Franck Khalfoun: 2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Maniac (2012) - POV-powered doll collector/ex-hobbit serial killer loose in LA

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 3.5 mil. $

Box office: 7.7 mil. $

= Flop (returned 2.2 times its cost)

[P2 was released 9 November (Canada, USA) and runs 98 minutes. The story was reportedly inspired by a series of parking garage attacks against women in Paris. Shooting took place from August - November 2006 in Toronto, Ontario. Bentley has later admitted that he was on cocaine and heroin at the time and only took roles to support this addiction. The film opened #9 to a 2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, its peak there where it grossed 3.9 mil. $ (50.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Mexico with 732k $ (9.5 %) and Spain with 705k $ (9.2 %). Roger Ebert gave it a 3/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. Khalfoun returned with Wrong Turn at Tahoe (2009). Nichols returned in Charlie Wilson's War (2007); Bentley in The Last Word (2008). P2 is rotten at 34 % with a 4.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of P2? 

Maniac (2012) - POV-powered doll collector/ex-hobbit serial killer loose in LA

♥♥♥♥
  
+ Wildest Movie of the Year 

The gritty, awesome poster for Franck Khalfoun's Maniac

Our title protagonist Frank lives in his LA home behind a mannequin restoration store. He kills women and scalps them, so that he can equip his dolls ...

I give a generous 4 ♥'s for Franck Khalfoun's (P2 (2007)) energetic remake of William Lustig's original Maniac (1980), which especially establishes its effectiveness through the terror and intense repulsion that it instills in most audiences who watch it.
Elijah Wood (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)) plays the loathsome lead, and he is really nasty in the part! Just have a look at him here:

The major new element in Khalfoun's Maniac is that it is shot almost entirely in POV [point of view]. This concept is painstaking to accomplish, but very impressively carried out here and at times very uncomfortable to watch, as it feels almost as if we are participating in the maniac's kills.
The murders are incredibly realistically looking and technically astonishing.
But other parts of Maniac do not really add up, for instance; why doesn't anyone ever ask about Frank's lacerated, disgusting hands? And SPOILER the flash-back 'explanatory' scenes of Frank's traumatic childhood are not adequate as a basis for understanding his current blood-lust, as they set out to do. Some kind of physical abuse would almost certainly also have been a part of his experiences. Finally the SPOILER cannibalistic ending of the film is strange in a bad way.
Khalfoun is now in post production with two films; a mystery thriller, i-Lived (2014) and yet another Amityville horror movie entitled, Amityville: The Awakening (2015).
Wood, who is inarguably a scoop for Maniac, has been active in quite a few wild, hair-raising projects recently; namely Brian De Palma's Grand Piano (2013) and the coming Cooties (2014), a highly anticipated horror movie.

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch the gruesome trailer for the film here

Cost: Estimated 6 mil. $
Box office: 2.6 mil. $
= Big flop
[Maniac seems to perhaps have fallen into the pit for horror films that we for lack of a better term could call the 'too horrific/revolting/sick bucket', which is only defined by unfair mainstream-feelings, as for instance the at least equally sick Saw horror movie franchise never fell into this category. Being literally inside the head of a brutal serial killer as we are in Maniac was probably, unfortunately, too much for most theaters and audiences, hence the lackluster result.]

What do you think of Franck Khalfoun's Maniac?
If you have seen the original, what do you think in comparison?