Darkness falls on Christmas Eve, and Angela (Rachel Nichols), a young, workaholic executive, is still at her desk, despite phone calls from her family reminding her to get a move on. Finally leaving the by-now deserted condo, Angela heads down to the level 2 underground parking lot – the P2 of the film’s title – and gets into her car. Which doesn’t start. Luckily, security guard Thomas (Wes Bentley) is on hand in the parking office, where he’s clearly going to be enjoying Christmas alone (apart from the homicidal-looking Rottweiler he keeps chained up), and offers a friendly hand. Trouble is, Thomas is one of those quiet, Norman Bates types who has been watching Angela for some time and wants her to stay for dinner. Cue 90 minutes of horribly predictable female-in-peril action as our heroine is undressed, held captive, escapes, is pursued, and eventually – after getting covered in blood and crying a lot – turns the tables on her tormentor.

Franck Khalfoun is an actor-turned-director, so perhaps we should forgive the mess he’s made of his first job of work; one expected more, though, as this turgid tale was produced and co-written by the talented Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension and the very good The Hills Have Eyes remake). Sadly, however, his presence seems to have made not a jot of difference: the opportunities for suspense and psychological horror offered by the admirably simple set-up – two enemies locked in a single space – are largely squand­ered on meaningless, repetitive sequences entirely too familiar from other movies. There may be a hint in the building that gives the film its structure – the glassy, corporate space of the office perched atop a dark, subterranean world of vengeful blue-collar fantasies – of a potentially rich psycho-social conflict involving class and gender that the film, with its woefully underwritten characters and fixation on set pieces, just isn’t capable of exploring. This could have been a satisfyingly dark slice of modern urban horror, but its lack of imagination and lapses in logic mean it’s just another stalk-fest, and one whose Christmas sett­ing makes its release now about as appealing as a leftover turkey sandwich in high summer.