mod_rewrite causes 403 error

[DrDoc]

I have Apache 2.0.40 installed and want to use mod_rewrite.
Everything works great (PHP/Perl/MySQL), until I add

RewriteEngine on

in my .htaccess file. Then, all of a sudden, every single file I try to access throws a 403 error saying that I don't have access to that file. I comment out

RewriteEngine on

and everything works fine again.

Any ideas? :(

<added>
Yes, the mod_rewrite module is loaded :)
</added>

[DrDoc]

Hmm... FollowSymLinks was turned off :(

[jdMorgan]

Still strange that it threw a 403 instead of a 500 error. I guess it could if you use a custom 500-Server Error page (Not a good idea, for this very reason, BTW).

Jim