Project X: A “You Had to Be There” Story

When I was a sophomore in college, my friends and I would make regular trips on weekends to take in Hershey Bears games, the local, minor league offshoot of the NHL's Washington Capitals.  The combination of cheap tickets and a quick commute to the 10,500 seat stadium lent a relaxed, laissez-faire attitude to what would otherwise be too burdensome of a social production. 

On one particular afternoon, the 3rd period saw the Bears futilely trying to climb out of a 7-2 hole and the mass exodus of disenchanted fans left a half-empty arena and a subsequent opportunity for my friends and I to upgrade our seats from the upper 300 level to some of the recently vacated lower 100 level.  Coco the Bear, Hershey's jovial mascot, decided to seize this opportunity to cheer up the deflated crowd by giving out free hot dogs to a small selection of the 5000 or so fans that had decided to stick around.  Guess which lucky fans were the first to take advantage of this generosity? 

Standing two rows in front of us, Coco began tossing hot dogs wrapped in tin foil to nearby bodies and wherever Coco went, so did the camera and whatever the camera saw, so did the rest of the arena courtesy of the jumbo screen looming over ice level.  Not only did the camera see me catch one of the food items Coco had thrown over his back shoulder, but it also saw me celebrating a bit too foolishly and obliviously afterward as the second dog he threw hit me directly in the face, catching me off guard and sending me tumbling into the seat behind me.  As I picked myself up off the floor, I was greeted by the laugher of 5000 people who had just witnessed every second of my embarrassment. 

I'd like to think that that's a pretty funny story, but admittedly, like all personal accounts the story can only be enjoyed by third parties to a certain extent due to the "you had to be there" factor.  I tell the story anyway to highlight the disconnect between the filmmakers' expectations for Project X and the inherent hindrance in expecting people to care about the so-called "epic" nature of a party that, as told through the found footage format, we as an audience experience second-handedly as one gigantic "you had to be there" story. 

The titular Project X is the brainchild of Costa (Oliver Cooper), who has recruited the high school AV club's gothic recluse, Dax (Dax Flame), to record every minute of Thomas's (Thomas Mann) 17th birthday.  A foul-mouthed nobody who talks longingly of nebulous events from "back in Queens," Costa wants to make a name for himself, his uptight best friend and their chubby punching bag, JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown) by throwing the most epic party ever while Thomas's parents are out of town for the weekend. 

Thomas, being the meek and mild one, is of course hesitant at first.  He wants people to think he's cool, but he also has every intention of adhering to the rules and expectations his parents laid out before their departure.  No more than 50 people, he says.  Costa, on the other hand, has other plans.  After all, how many epic parties sprang out of a gathering of only 50 people?

Through word of mouth and good old social media proliferation, word of Thomas's party spreads.  Trickling crowds grow into convoys and party bus arrivals and soon Thomas no longer has to worry about people thinking he's cool.  Instead, he has to worry about the consequences of his actions as one by one the moral and legal obligations he made either explicitly or implicitly are shattered.  No one allowed inside the house?  Shattered.  Keep the noise level down?  Shattered.  Answer all of his parents' calls immediately?  Shattered.  Don't let anyone put a midget in the oven, tase the neighbor, punch out a 12-year old, drive his dad's Mercedes Benz into the pool and/or set the house on fire?  Not looking so good. 

The found footage genre is one that's quickly wearing out its welcome on paper, so the idea of applying it to something other than a horror story is a way to inject life into the tired formula.  But the reason found footage is so conducive to horror is because the technical and narrative limitations of such a filmmaking technique enhance the tense, mysterious atmosphere of the horror genre.  Lacking any tension or mystery, the incessant documentation of the debauchery in Project X instead comes off as cinematic self-importance, as though we'll be thanking everyone later for exposing us to every minute of their private and public destruction.

Admittedly, said destruction of private and public property escalates in a way that, at least in regards to the world of Project X, feels organic and imminent rather than as fan service from filmmakers who might feel that the audience deserves chaos on par with Animal House or Superbad.   Having said that, having even a semblance of a vested interest in the film relies on caring about one of three main characters: Thomas, who's essentially a blank slate; JB, who serves only as a walking punch line for fat jokes; and Costa, who seemingly aspires to one up Superbad's Seth in the irredeemable asshole department. 

If you're on board with them, then you'll undoubtedly be on board for a film that features scenes of a midget punching people in the crotch in an assembly line fashion, the physical and verbal abuse of innocent neighbors and the inadvertent burning down of a family's home.  Part of me can't stand the fact that writing such a line makes me sound as crotchety as my father complaining about the violence in Gangs of New York (it has the word gangs in the title, dad!), but I must specify and say that it's not the inclusion of such disparate elements that bothers me as much as the motivation behind their inclusion. 

Despite the fact that Costa and Thomas pull off shenanigans that would likely see them learn about adulthood in the prison showers while their parents experience their golden years in a minimum security prison, the Project X filmmakers, which include first-time feature director Nima Nourizadeh and provocateur producer Todd Phillips, are arrogant enough to declare it all as worthy and justified because an awkward teen comes out of his shell in the end.  Now, I wasn't exactly a social butterfly in high school either, but I'm pretty sure any pride my father felt in my record-breaking get together would be overshadowed by the pure, brain hemorrhage-inducing rage he would feel over the destruction of everything he had worked to accomplish throughout his entire adult life.  By justify the end despite the horrific means, let's face the facts and admit that, despite the seeming geriatric nature of the comment, Project X is a glorification of debauchery and destruction.

Most immediately, I can think of two demographics to which Project X would appeal: the grown up frat boys who look back on high school as the best years of their lives and the grown up social rejects who have to live vicariously through the film to experience what they never could.  As for the rest of us, we're just privy to an 88-minute story that would've been better had we been there.