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The North Wind

The North Wind

The North Wind

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Dallas Wiertella
Dallas Wiertella
Multimedia Editor

Through my experience here at the North Wind I have been able to have the privilege of highlighting students through all forms of multimedia journalism. Whether I'm in front or behind the camera, I aim...

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The North Wind is an independent student publication serving the Northern Michigan University community. It is partially funded by the Student Activity Fee. The North Wind digital paper is published daily during the fall and winter semesters except on university holidays and during exam weeks. The North Wind Board of Directors is composed of representatives of the student body, faculty, administration and area media.

PROFILE — Katie Buhrmann is a 2022 alum of NMU and the executive administrative assistant in NMUs Office of Institutional Effectiveness. She recently self-published her first book of poetry. Photo courtesy of Katie Buhrmann
Alumni Katie Buhrmann explores South Korea through language
Katarina RothhornMarch 28, 2024

‘P2’ a bad title, and an even worse movie

(1 out of 5 stars)

A movie’s title is very important. It’s what grabs the viewers’ attention and leads — or misleads — them right into the theater. Something tells me that first-time director Franck Khalfoun doesn’t understand this, hence the title of his new film, “P2.” If there ever was an award for worst title, “P2” would definitely be a contender. Not too surprisingly, the movie reflects the quality of its title: a cliché ridden, unimaginative mess that’s not worth your time.

Angela Bridges (Rachel Nichols) is a young, hard-working executive, to a fault. Even on Christmas Eve, when she’s supposed to meet up with family, she stays late at work. As she heads to her car after a night in the office which, you guessed it, is on level P2, the lights go out. In the darkness, parking attendant Thomas (Wes Bentley) kidnaps her. She awakes in his office, where he tells her he wants her to stay for companionship. Panicked, Bridges escapes, but Thomas has locked her in the building, keeping her confined to the four levels of the parking garage.

There is one good thing I can say about “P2” and that’s the story’s set up. It doesn’t take long for the building to clear out, leaving Bridges alone with Thomas. At first that seems like a good thing, since most horror films spend too much time developing characters that will die some 40 minutes later. However, with the set-up quickly out of the way, “P2” has a lot of time to spend on the supposed story.

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“P2” is a film that will test your patience. The two characters talk, and talk, and run around the parking garage, and talk and then run around some more. It moves by so slow that you’d swear you were watching a 10-hour long epic, not a 90-minute piece of garbage.

“P2” drags because of its absurd plot. There isn’t enough content to sustain a single episode of “The Twilight Zone,” let alone a feature-length film. The story is so weak the director is forced to use standard horror clichés as filler. If you see “P2,” you may see more of the ceiling than you will of the film, from rolling your eyes at the unbelievably terrible thrills and gore. The closest the film comes to entertainment is a scene where Bridges is trapped in an elevator and Thomas tries to get her out by flooding it with a fire hose. Yep, that is the closest “P2” comes to resembling anything entertaining: flooding an elevator.

As if it weren’t already laughably bad, some of the events are downright impossible. Characters exhibit Hulk-like strength, smashing out windows with hardly any effort. Thomas has super-human speed, running across the parking garage faster than The Flash could ever dream of.

Even more painful to endure are the attempts made by Nichols and Bentley to act. It quickly becomes clear that Nichols is supposed to be a wannabe Lindsay Lohan, and she does her best to emulate the pop star, but fails miserably.

This has been a rough year on horror films. Some of the year’s worst movies have come from the genre and “P2” is no exception.

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