If you have seen the ads for "P2," or even heard about them, you know what the movie involves. A woman works late in the office on Christmas Eve, leaves after everyone else, descends to parking level P-2 to get her car, finds it won't start, and then meets the homicidal madman who is the overnight lot attendant.

Yes, I know, it sounds like a formula slasher film, but it's actually done well, and, in the current climate at least, most Women in Danger films end up with Men in Danger. There were elements of "P2" that even reminded me a little of Jodie Foster's "Panic Room" -- especially in complexities involving cell phones, alarms, spycams and doors that are locked or unlocked.

The movie benefits from being played about as straight as it can be, given the material. Rachel Nichols, as the endangered heroine, Angela, doesn't do stupid things or make obvious mistakes. And Wes Bentley, as Thomas, the lonely guy on overnight duty, doesn't froth at the mouth and cackle with insane zeal. Oh, he's insane, all right, but he's one of those insane lonely guys who can't understand why Angela doesn't want to share his Christmas dinner, even though he has stripped her to her negligee, chained her to the furniture, and has a savage dog lunging at her. He's just trying to be friends.

A movie like this depends on invention in the screenplay. You can't merely have the woman running around frantically while the guy pops up in the foreground with a standard horror movie swooshing sound. There has to be a little logic. And Angela thinks of most of the right things to do, even though most of the time she can't do them.

Angela does everything right, but it doesn't work. And when she somehow gets out a garbled call for help on 911, two cops turn up and they do everything right, too. Often in thrillers, the cops are practically standing on a dead body and don't notice anything. But these guys are pros, they follow the ropes, they don't buy Thomas' story at face value, and still they don't save Angela. It's more exciting that way.

This is, in case you haven't noticed, the best autumn for movies in years. There are a dozen, maybe two dozen, movies in current release that I would recommend over "P2." But horror movies routinely "win the weekend" at the box office, and it is no small consolation that the customers who insist on their horror movie this weekend will see a well-made one.

Review by Robert Ebert / Universal Press Syndicate