In my recent review for Chronicle, I touched on the evolution of the found-footage movie and how it was starting to cross genres. In the beginning, these films dwelled mainly in the horror genre (something which continues to this day with the Paranormal Activity series.) Chronicle took the approach into the superhero/action realm. Ostensibly, the found-footage technique could be applied to anything which depicts people in an activity, so why not a comedy? Thus, we have Project X, a movie which wants to meld found-footage with the gross-out comedy.

Project X may as well start working with Megatron, as it is a Decepticon. The found-footage approach is meant to make us think that this is movie is something new and different, but it isn't, as it contains all of the familiar trappings of the high-school party genre. What's this? Thomas has been friends with Kirby (Kirby Bliss Blanton) since childhood and because of this, he doesn't realize that she's hot? We've never seen that in a movie? What's this? Costa is a loud-mouth blow-hard who thinks that he's smooth with the ladies? What's this? JB is a fat guy with curly hair who overdresses for the party? What, was Jonah Hill's character from Superbad not available? You don’t expect a movie like this, especially one which wants us to suspend our disbelief and accept that what we are watching “really happened”, to have much of a script, much less be overwritten. But, writers Matt Drake and Michael Bacall have hit every cliche possible which very few exceptions. (A particularly destructive character who arrives late to the party was somewhat of a surprise.)

Applying a (sort of) new filmmaking style to an old sub-genre is a great idea, but one must do some work on the script as well. Project X fails as a comedy, as I only laughed a few times. (I have to admit that the introduction of the security guards was funny.) The movie works so hard to be shocking and controversial that it completely forgets to be humorous and clever. The participation of The Hangover director Todd Philips in the film as a producer dominates the promotion of the movie. Sure, he’s made some gross-out movies, but they also contain an element of subversive revelry. Nothing like that is found here. This entire party is a pooper.

Project X looked like it took place in the house from Disturbia on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Warner Home Video. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer that runs at an average of 25 Mbps. Being a “found-footage” movie, the video quality varies a lot here, and the HD transfer has enhanced both the positive and negative aspects. The daytime scenes look very good, as the image is sharp and clear, showing little grain and no overt defects. The nighttime scenes, however, often come across as too dark, but, again, this is simply a reflection of the filmmaking style. Colors look good and the level of detail is fine in the less dark scenes. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The irritating and seemingly non-stop hip-hop music in the film provides a great deal of subwoofer effects. The surround sound effects really shine in the party scenes and some segments work to make up feel that we are in the middle of the action. The same goes for the stereo effects, which are nicely detailed.