Summit Entertainment 2007. Written by Alexandre Aja, Franck Khalfoun and Grégory Levasseur. Directed by Franck Khalfoun. Music by tomandandy. Starring Wes Bentley and Rachel Nichols.

     By Stephen Pytak 

     This is the "Die Hard" of psycho cinema. 
     And while the concept is simple on the surface,
it's handled very well. This is a fun ride, a thriller 
filled with terror, tense moments, great chase 
sequences and some gore here and there. 
     And one of the key reasons why it works is the
filmmakers and actors were able to balance out
the nail-biting scenes with humor.
     Wes Bentley gives what could be called a tour de
force in his portrayal of "Thomas" the night 
security guard at an office building's underground
multi-layer parking garage. It must be seen to be
truly appreciated. It's the best performance of its
kind in recent memory, making this one of the best 
horror films of the year. 
     Thomas is obsessed with Elvis, Marilyn Monroe 
and "Angela (Rachel Nichols)," a corporate 
climber who parks near his office. 
     Determined to be with Angela for the holidays,
Thomas traps her on P2, knocks her out, and 
and dresses her up like Marilyn in "Some Like It
Hot." 
     Thomas tries to impress her with red wine, a
Christmas dinner he brought from home in plastic
containers. He also offers to off one of her co-
workers, an older guy who made an inappropriate
pass at her in an elevator. 
     Unimpressed, she gets scraped up, loses a 
finger nail, nearly drowns and fights a dog while
trying to escape, all the while barefoot like John
McClane.
    The cat-and-mouse game is a lot of fun. There
are wonderful stand-alone scenes in an elevator,
a rent-a-car office and the trunk of Angela's BMW.
    And Nichols makes for a good heroine, keeping 
it real. At times she reminded me of Marilyn Burns 
of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," blood 
streaming down her face, pushed to the brink. 
    One of my favorite moments happens at midpoint.
    Starting to become overconfident, Thomas blasts
a recording of Elvis' "Blue Christmas" and does an 
outrageous lip sych. This is really hilarious.
    And while we're laughing at that, we see Angela
getting hold of a fire ax and busting video 
surveillance cameras. 
    This was a cool rush. It felt like the tables were
starting to turn. We were belly laughing at the
bad guy while cheering for the heroine. Really fun
moment, maybe my favorite in the film.
     A lot of critics have been down on this film, 
according to the Rotten Tomatoes Web site's
survey. And that's too bad. It's not easy writing 
and directing good thrill shows. I'd like to see them
try.
     By the way, one of the writers of this film was
Alexandre Aja, the director of "High Tension" and
the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes." He's one of
my favorite filmmakers. And I thank him for
bringing new and effective thrillers to a genre which
is too often plagued by run-of-the-mill copycats and
sequels.
     The DVD release isn't all that bad, considering
some films like this come out bare bones. This
one's got a commentary with Director Franck 
Khalfoun and Aja. There's also a few featurettes.