Y2K (2024)
Two high school nobodies crash a New Year's Eve party in 1999, and the night becomes even crazier than they could have imagined.
Do you remember the panic that seized the world at the turn of the millennium? If you’re old enough, you will recall the wild theories surrounding how the new millennium would affect computer systems. For those who were too young, ask your parents. A quarter of a century later, it sounds ridiculous, and in many ways, it was; a kind of moral panic about the ubiquitous place technology was starting to take in our lives, and its potential dangers to society. Using this specific event in our recent history, the horror-comedy Y2K pits humans against technology in a weird, twisted instance of “what if it really happened?”
Saturday Night Live alum Kyle Mooney (Brigsby Bear) makes his directorial debut with Y2K. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Evan Winter and the film has substantial backing from actor-producer Jonah Hill and acclaimed distributor A24. The latter company has built a strong portfolio in recent years, with their releases coming to signify high-quality, out-of-the-box indie and auteur filmmaking… but does Y2K live up to that hype?
It directly sets the scene on an iMac screen with dial-up internet, displaying AOL and AIM. High school juniors and best friends Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) have nothing planned for New Year’s Eve 1999, apart from renting a film at their local video shop and eating junk food. That is, until they run into Eli’s crush, popular girl Laura (Rachel Zegler) at the corner shop, and learn there’s a rager being thrown by “Soccer Chris” (The Kid Laroi). Danny sees the opportunity for Eli to kiss the girl of his dreams at the turn of the new year. Together (and with quite a few sips of straight vodka), they muster the courage to crash the party, making their way there by bike with Eli’s latest mixtape playing on a boombox. Nostalgia, here we come.
Things go south as soon as they ring in the new year: the lights flicker in and out, and a girl starts screaming from an upstairs bedroom. Appliances are melding together and attacking the unsuspecting teenagers, bringing quite a few of them down: a pink children’s toy car strapped with a screen starts spitting fire using a can of hairspray with a lighter, and a Tamagotchi tied with a power drill to a skateboard goes to town through a girl’s head, to give a few examples. Eli, Danny and Laura team up with a few other party-goers, including their metalhead bully Farkas (Eduardo Franco), his camcorder-totting follower Ash (Lachlan Watson) and hip-hop wannabe CJ (Daniel Zolghadri), to try and make it to safety in an old mill devoid of electricity, and thus, of murderous technology. Joining the teenagers down the road are the stoner video shop clerk Garrett (director Kyle Mooney), Laura’s ex Jonas (Mason Gooding), and a not-so-surprising cameo teased in most of the promotional material, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst.
The rag-tag group of survivors suffers heavy casualties right off the bat, with characters dying in sometimes gruesome, often stupid, ways. Lucky for them, though, is the fact that Laura is not just a pretty girl, but also something of a whiz kid with computers; that’s how she and Eli got to know each other. Once they figure out what’s going on, they set out to wipe out the bug brought by the new millennium and kick some machine monster butts.
Jaeden Martell (Midnight Special) is a bland and safe choice as Y2K’s hero, Eli. His performance is not terrible, but he’s easily eclipsed by the others throughout the film. That is especially true of his on-screen best bud Danny, played by a brilliant and electrifying Julian Dennison (Hunt for the Wilderpeople), who delivers the funniest performance of the whole film. Rachel Ziegler (West Side Story) also shows off some comedic chops as Laura, and we’re treated to a few nostalgic casting choices like Alicia Silverstone (Clueless) and Tim Heidecker as Eli’s parents Robin and Howard.
Eli’s main motivation at the start might have been to get a shot at being with Laura, but their romance is hard to believe or care about, and their connection feels tenuous at best. The budding and complex connection between Ash and CJ as they flee the blood-soaked party and make their way through the ravaged town has so much more heart, which shows Mooney and Winter know how to write romance if only they’d shine their spotlight on the right pairing. Romance is not the only facet that ends up suffering in Y2K’s storytelling. Unfortunately, the most entertaining characters are the first to go, dispatching the comedy with them, and it leaves the least interesting characters to shoulder the rest of the film as best they can.
Finally, it’s unclear if Mooney is trying to spoof teen and horror comedies of the late nineties and early noughties, or simply recreating them with a nostalgic twist. This particular period has yet to be slathered in nostalgia by the mainstream media, so Y2K scores in terms of originality there… at least for the first half-hour or so. The party scene and the very start of the millennium apocalypse are when the film is at its strongest. Once the film goes from teen comedy to sci-fi horror, the viewer’s suspension of disbelief is severely put to the test. There are a few extremely fun moments of gore, with many limbs and heads being severed and an admittedly cool death involving CDs embedded in the victim’s face. While the premise of the Y2K bug is a fun one, the resulting monster machines hellbent on wiping out humanity feel a bit tired.
Similarly, the hacker genius role thrust upon Laura is akin to a bad sketch parody: ridiculous and obviously impossible, but not self-aware enough to make it clear whether the pastiche is voluntary or not. Y2K does boast elevated cinematography courtesy of Bill Pope (Alita: Battle Angel), with slick shots and an overall polished look. The film’s soundtrack is another point in its favour, but admittedly, that’s an easy point to score for someone as familiar with the period he’s referencing as Mooney is. Disappointingly, once it has exhausted all its deep-cut references and the film moves into the monster/apocalypse survival arc, it struggles to keep up with its premise and deliver both laughs and spooks. Even the references are less jokes and more like simple inclusions; winks, perhaps. The result is a middling film that’ll only delight a specific crowd of folk who were teens in 1999, as well as stoner comedy stans. For the rest, it will be an unmemorable horror film about an inconsequential, silly moment in time, which made for an okay film night at some point.
USA • NEW ZEALAND | 2024 | 93 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH
Cast & Crew
director: Kyle Mooney.
writers: Kyle Mooney & Evan Winter.
starring: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, Lachlan Watson, Mason Gooding, Fred Durst & Alicia Silverstone.
