P2

It's a film about a woman trapped in a parking structure. Oh dear. We're not being offered some Beckettian meditation on the emptiness of existence. Are we?

Fear not. P2is a perfectly respectable - that's to say agreeably violent - slasher picture from the team that brought us the fine Switchblade Romance. There's nothing much here to win over those allergic to the genre, but the film-makers have happened upon an effective premise and the shocks are rationed out judiciously.

It's Christmas Eve and Angela (Rachel Nichols), a harried junior executive, is having some trouble escaping her workplace. When she eventually gets to her car, it stubbornly refuses to start. Initially the security guard is helpful, but, after a few uncomfortable exchanges, he turns peculiar and handcuffs her to a heavy table in his office.

Well, you probably know how it goes from there. She escapes, discovers that her mobile phone won't work underground and is forced to run up and down stairways while the angry security man puffs along behind.

A key early scene finds the villain inviting Angela into his den to share Christmas dinner. We are clearly being asked to remember Norman Bates's attempts at hospitality in Psycho, but Wes Bentley, still best remembered as the troubled teenager in American Beauty, fails to discover enough nervous energy to convince as a proper psychopath. Even in his most demented moments, he looks like somebody who has just dropped an only modestly heavy melon on his foot.

That noted, P2remains a solid piece of old-school horror constructed for those of us who still, from time to time, like to shout "Don't go into the cellar!" at foolish women in dark places.