I've Never Seen Project X, So I Watched It After The Netflix Documentary About The Crazy Party That It Inspired, And Whoa!

Somehow, Project X, the Todd Phillips-produced “found footage” movie from 2012 about a trio of teens who set out to throw the best high school party of all time, escaped me at the time. I’d never seen it, and really knew very little about it until I watched the latest Trainwreck documentary with my Netflix subscription.

Trainwreck: The Real Project X is a wild documentary about a party in a small town in the Netherlands that was inspired by the movie, and the footage in both is shockingly similar. After watching the doc, the latest from the Trainwreck Series, and the wildest since The Mayor of Mayhem, I had to watch the movie. Here are my thoughts.

Project X Is A Decent Movie

The movie Project X, starring Oliver Cooper, Thomas Mann, and Jonathan Daniel Brown as the three friends throwing that party for Thomas’ (Mann) birthday has a pretty bad reputation with critics (28% “rotten”) on Rotten Tomatoes, but fans like it a little more (61% “fresh”), so I went in with an open mind. In the end, I didn’t hate the movie, but I get why it was a flop with critics.

I liked the movie. In fact, before things totally go off the rails, it was a pretty decent representation of some high school parties I went to. Plenty of drugs-and-booze-filled debauchery, but nothing that crazy. At least at first. I got into the build-up to the party, with the three teens traveling all over town to get supplies and setting up the night. Again, it reminded me of high school, in a good way.

The Origin Story Of The Party Is Different

It seems the film was much bigger abroad, as everyone in the Trainwreck documentary, the latest in the excellent series streaming on Netflix, seemed very into the movie. Sure, maybe it was just the people who were interviewed, as they were the ones responsible for the party, but Project X seemed quite popular with a younger audience in the Netherlands. This led to the party invitation going viral and being connected to the 2012 movie. It was even dubbed “Project X Haren,” after the town of Haren, where it all went down.

The party took place later in 2012, so obviously it was fresh on the kids’ minds, and when the original host of the party, Merthe Weusthuis, left the Facebook invite to the party open to the public, the whole thing went viral. When Weusthuis canceled the party and took down the invite, it was too late. There were others promoting the party, using her address and phone number. Weusthuis and her family did all they could to stop it, but with no luck.

Once The Party Gets Out Of Control, That’s Where It Looked Like The Doc

The footage of the party in Haren and the “found footage” of the movie, once the party gets really out of control, are disturbingly alike. Cars being burned, riot police trying to break things up, bottles being thrown… It’s a wild scene in both films. In fact, it made watching the movie more fun, because had I not seen Trainwreck: The Real Project X, I would have dismissed the movie as too over the top. But nope, the documentary is proof it could happen.

I went to high school in the 1990s, going to concerts and parties in an age of underground raves. I was struck by how easy it would be today for parties like that to get out of control. Obviously, without social media or even the internet, somehow word of mouth would still spread information about raves, but not anywhere near the same level as in the documentary. Again, what I would’ve dismissed as unbelievable in the movie was made very believable by the documentary.

In the end, I do have to recommend both the movie Project X and Trainwreck: The Real Project X, but if you haven’t seen either, watch the documentary first. Just don't confuse the movie with the Matthew Broderick movie of the same name from 1989. Waaaay different movie.