Stream It Or Skip It?

Netflix’s Trainwreck is your go-to documentary series when you want to be reminded that crazy things happened and get little to no analysis on said crazy things. Trainwreck: The Real Project X is in line with previous entries like Poop Cruise and The Cult of American Apparel in that it recounts events in less than an hour, prompts us to shake our heads in disbelief and then get on with our day, having learned little beyond what we read in headlines a dozen or so years ago. Notably, The Real Project X tells a tale – of a small town overrun by a party inspired by the teen debauchery in 2012 movie Project X – that isn’t quite as ubiquitous, since it took place in the Netherlands and didn’t cut deeply into our news feeds. So maybe it’ll be worth a watch, just to be more informed about how these particular crazy things went down.

The Gist: Haren is a little burg in the Netherlands, pop. 18,000. It’s essentially a suburb of Gorningen (pop. 200k+); if you live in Haren, Gorningenites might pigeonhole you as “posh.” And while the Netherlands has a reputation for being liberal in its legalizing of drugs, prostitution and the like, people who live there say the country is rigidly structured and rooted in tradition, so it’s not like people are drugging it up and doin’ it in the streets. “The Dutch don’t like it when we break our unwritten rules,” says one talking head. So it’s not like the residents of Haren would just shrug off a party that might’ve doubled its population and resulted in riots, injuries and property damage.

How did this happen? Speaking broadly, it was youthful stupidity that became mischievous malfeasance, and authoritative stupidity that became a shirking of public duty – which is to say, the key figures in this story, young or old, are all kinda morons. Although maybe not Merthe, the then-16-year-old who inadvertently rolled a snowball down a mountain that grew bigger and bigger and nearly destroyed her town. She just wanted to throw herself a birthday party by creating a Facebook event, inviting 78 people to her family’s house. Why she clicked “public” instead of “private” on the event page isn’t quite clear, but we can pretty much chalk it up to ignorance, this being the earlyish days of social media omnipresence.

Clicking “public” means any random Facebook user can see the post and invite people willy-nilly, which is what some of Merthe’s schoolmates did, because haha lol tongue-stick-out emoji. One guy explains how he invited all 500 of his Facebook friends by clicking 500 times because that’s how it worked back then. It was at more than 3,000 invites when Merthe deleted the post – and then watched as a guy named Jorik, interviewed here, created a copycat page that notched an invite list numbering many many more. A phone call from Merthe’s father prompted Jorik to pull his page down but other users created copycat pages and responded like so: “Eat shit.” 

This is when we learn that Haren not only has a mayor, but a “night mayor” who handles things when the 9-to-5 pols go home to eat dinner and watch TV. The night mayor caught wind of the party, which was marketing itself using similar lingo as the Project X movie that debuted earlier that year. The day mayor yada-yada’ed the party, refusing to take it seriously, shooting down the night mayor’s insistence that they quickly organize an alternate event that could be better controlled. Well, by the day of the party, 350,000 people had been invited, and even if a fraction of them actually attended, it’d be trouble – and don’t ask how many people showed up because the doc doesn’t give us that stat. (Note: A smattering of news reports say 3,000 or 4,000 people attended.) The teens flowed into Haren, drinking like crazy (drinking age in the Netherlands is 16; cue a talking head who explains, “We didn’t need a fake ID like McLovin”) and filling the streets near Merthe’s house with revelers. And then the day mayor decided something needed to be done, so he sent in the riot police.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Project X is currently a $3.99 rental on your video-on-demand platform of choice. I’m reminded with every passing Trainwreck that HBO set the standard for funny, lightweight documentaries with Class Action Park. And Paramount+ two-parter Crush – about the crowd stampede that killed 159 people in Seoul in 2022 – is a similar story of urban disaster that takes such things far more seriously.

Performance Worth Watching: Chris, the “night mayor,” is the most credible talking head, possibly because he seems to have had his head screwed on right while this infamous calamity was unfolding.

Memorable Dialogue: “We were just this tiny town with four likes!”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Merthe can kinda laugh about it now – except for the part of Trainwreck: The Real Project X where she talks about how she heard rumors that two girls were killed in the melee. The part that inspires what we think is a real emotion before revealing that it was, indeed, just a rumor, and that nobody died. And then we resume the head-shaking facepalm tone of the doc, which recounts events from the points-of-view of key figures, from Haren council members to news reporters and a number of revelers, including a couple of wannabe YouTubers looking to shoot a viral video. Merthe is a sympathetic figure – her innocent intentions became trouble once control was ripped away from her – and Night Mayor Chris is a voice of reason the documentary desperately needs. But several of the doc’s participants come off smelling like farts here, whether they exacerbated the problem or capitalized on it.

Weirdly, nobody seems to take the story seriously – or seriously enough, considering its implications. Implications that Real Project X director Alex Wood doesn’t seem particularly interested in, and such unseriousness has been the calling card of many Trainwreck entries so far (especially Mayor of Mayhem and Poop Cruise). The Haren incident brims with compelling subtext: It took place as social media began establishing itself as a net-negative societal presence (bad actors made an amusing situation dangerous, and doxxed Merthe). The news media’s role has us wondering if its reportage was responsible or exploitative. And the story is a prime example of authorities making the problem worse by being unprepared and reacting with force – we see footage of riot cops beating unarmed partiers – instead of proactively trying to prevent violent conflict. 

But such substantive threads of this saga are but bullets bouncing off the Hulk’s thick green hide, because it’s too much “fun” watching the guy smash things. This seems to be the intent of Trainwreck – to not Get Into Things. Cans of worms are left unopened, and we’re left to simply read the label. Of course, the contents of cans of worms are the most compelling and relevant portions of any story, but Trainwreck is titled Trainwreck because all it asks us to do is gawk at the mess and not worry too much about the hows and whys. The Real Project X is informative and “entertaining” on a superficial level, but the series routinely leaves a bad taste in our mouths with its point-and-gasp/laugh methodology. And that’s what separates the journalism of responsible documentary filmmaking with sensationalist junk like this.

Our Call: Oh, the “day mayor” eventually resigned over this fiasco. It shocks me to recall how people used to admit wrongdoing and voluntarily vacate positions of power. How quaint – and another fascinating topic The Real Project X glosses over. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.