Remember Where You Parked!

Film: P2
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on the new internet machine.

Since finding Tubi as a service, I’ve been spending a lot of time on it. The service has a surprising number of movies that are difficult to find. If I’m honest, P2 isn’t one of those movies; it’s not really that difficult to locate. But, it’s also a movie that has a short shelf life on the service, so I figured I’d watch. Honestly, that’s where I’ve been spending a lot of my viewing time in the specific—watching films that are leaving Tubi in the next few weeks.

P2 (which had to be called Parking 2 in Spanish-speaking countries because “pe dos” translates as “flatulence.”) is a high-concept thriller. On Christmas Eve, a young woman named Angela (Rachel Nichols) is trying to get home from work. Instead, it turns out that the guy who works security in the parking garage (Wes Bentley) is a creepy stalker who is taking this opportunity to trap her and force himself on her.

Why Remake This?

Film: Maniac
Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on The New Portable.

Remakes tend to have a poor reputation, and with reason. Frequently they are made as something like a cash grab, trying to capitalize on name recognition. There was a decade or so-long trend of immediate American remakes of Japanese horror movies, most of which were terrible and most of which seemed to be nothing more than trying to make a buck from an audience that won’t watch something with subtitles. Still, I can understand the appeal of a remake. Your story is already written, and if you feel like you can add something to the way in which that story was told, the remake seems like a perfect choice. All of this leads me to a single question: of all the movies that someone could remake, why in hell would someone want to remake William Lustig’s Maniac?

Yet, that’s where we are here, with a 2012 remake of a film that feels honestly like the actual film stock was made of oil and grease. This remake features two things that make it perhaps more interesting than the original version. The first is that it stars Elijah Wood as the deranged killer obsessed with mannequins who goes around New York killing women, scalping them, and attaching their hair to his mannequin collection with a staple gun. Do yourself a favor—reread that sentence, since that is the plot here, and decide whether or not this is worth your time. The second potentially interesting fact about the film is that it is filmed like a first-person perspective video game. While Wood appears in pretty much every shot, we see his face only in mirrors and similar objects.