P2 FACTS

Angela Bridges (Rachel Nichols) is such a hardworking young executive that she toils late into the night on Christmas Eve. Eventually taking off so she can get to her family's holiday party at a semi-reasonable hour, Angela makes the lonely walk to her car in her office's parking garage. However, once she gets in the automobile, she can't get it to start, so she gets some help from a security guard on duty, Thomas (Wes Bentley). Even he can't get the car going, so he invites Angela to a holiday dinner in his office, which she refuses. Bad move! Thomas has actually been stalking Angela for months, and now he'll do anything to make sure she stays with him through the night.

Cast Wes Bentley, Rachel Nichols (more)

Director(s) Franck Khalfoun

Writer(s) Franck Khalfoun, Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur

Status In theaters (wide)

Genre(s) Horror

Release Date Nov. 9, 2007

Running Time 90 minutes

MPAA Rating R - for strong violence/gore, terror and language

OUR REVIEW
by Dave White

Who's in It: Wes Bentley, Rachel Nichols

The Basics: One thing we all love about Christmas is it's the time of year when we get to tell that special someone we care about them, and office-building-security rent-a-cop Bentley (who is a long way away from his Oscar-adjacent American Beauty past here) is going to do that on Christmas Eve to his executive lady crush by chaining her up and then chasing her around a parking garage with a taser and trying to drown her in an elevator. And you kind of have to admit that the idea of drowning someone in an elevator is pretty imaginative, right?

What's the Deal? Besides the novelty of the elevator-flooding thing, everything about this movie is totally by-the-horror numbers, right down to how shriekingly stupid Nichols' damsel in distress can be at the worst possible moments. But just as you begin to lose your sympathy for her, the script lets her turn the tables and, well, you know how it all turns out already, really. Don't think for a second that you don't.

Cue Cleavage and Fire Hose … and … Action! Following in the footsteps of the great lady-parts-exploitation movies of cinema history, this film dresses up its female lead in a flimsy white dress cut down to her belly button and then dunks her in a tank of water and rolls her all over the dirty ground before spraying her with blood. Because it's a fact of science that that's super hot.

Why This Movie Is Dumb: Everyone knows that fancy people who work in offices in business clothes secretly want to do "it" with the blue-collar employees who occasionally cross their paths. It's the sexual allure of class difference. And when you're all handsome like Bentley, if your real-life job was to be the parking-lot guy in an office full of stuck-up people, you'd still get all the action you could handle. You wouldn't need to taze anyone for it.

Why This Movie Is Still Watchable in That Dorky "You Go Girl" Way: You'll find yourself excited on a gut-level when she fights back. Brutal revenge on the bad guy attacker is hard to make un-fun to look at. It's no I Spit on Your Grave, but it'll do for this week. It actually robbed me of the ability to make a P.U. joke.