Project X, the new film about a teen party that turns a suburban block into a war zone, is a parent's worst nightmare. It's rated R by the MPAA "for crude and sexual content throughout, nudity, drugs, drinking, pervasive language, reckless behavior and mayhem-all involving teens."
Still, it's better than your teen having the actual party at your house, right?
Writer Thomas Bacall says that the goal from the start was "to create the gnarliest high school party of all time," and in the press notes, Warner Bros. promises that "dreams are ruined, records are blemished and legends are born."
First-time feature director Nima Nourizadeh previously cashed in on the party culture for Adidas commercials, and producer Todd Phillips is certainly no stranger to legendary keggers. Phillips is the man behind several films that appear on your standard top 10 movie-party list, among them The Hangover (about a legendary bachelor party's aftermath), Road Trip (wherein a bunch of skinny white dudes crash a black fraternity party) and Old School, a back-to-school frat fantasy for those of us well out of college.
In Project X, Thomas, Costa and J.B. (Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown) try to shake their anonymous status at school by having a small house party in Pasadena while JB's parents are away. The trio is not unlike those three dweebs from Sixteen Candles (John Cusack, Anthony Michael Hall and Darren Harris). The only difference? Molly Ringwald was mortified when she learned that a bathroom full of freshmen got to see her undies; the girls in Project X have no such modest qualms.
Thanks to tweeting and texting, word of the party spreads like wildfire, and the 100 people expected turns into a horde of thousands.
Thanks also to those ever-present cellphones, Nourizadeh felt that several different types of cameras were required to capture the party antics the way partygoers would capture them: from a zillion different angles at once. So in addition to the primary cameras (12 different types in all), flip-cameras were given to some of the extras to help capture atmospheric footage. The official cameramen wore party garb and tried to mingle in with the crowd as much as possible, occasionally hiding in bushes to get "authentic" footage and go undetected by extras.
Sound creepy yet? John Belushi and his toga party is quaint by comparison. Molly Ringwald (again) mixing it up with Blaine's drunk preppy friends at a house party in Pretty in Pink ranks as downright tame. Julia Stiles dirty dancing on a table in 10 Things I Hate About You (before being rescued by Heath Ledger)? Meh.
You're getting closer with Can't Hardly Wait, where house-party karaoke to "Paradise City" turns a nerd into a sex god, or Get Him to the Greek, where Jonah Hill smokes a spliff packed with everything from angel dust to Zantac, before tussling with P. Diddy.
So you were impressed when Stillwater's frontman jumped from the roof into the pool in Almost Famous? In Project X they drive the family car into the pool. A turntable (remember those?) playing a pepperoni pizza was the worst damage in Sixteen Candles; Project X features a drug dealer who lights half the neighbourhood on fire with a flame thrower.
And you can't get rid of the evidence by bagging up all the empties and vacuuming the rug: it'll be on Youtube before you finish cleaning.
So parents, be warned: If you have kids who you think might just glean inspiration from Project X, you might want to ground them ahead of time. Or just don't go out of town, ever.
Project X opens Friday at Scotiabank.
