If you're of a certain age you may remember the shared panic over the oncoming millennium. The apocalyptic threat of the Y2K, the theory that computers wouldn't be able to recognize dates past 1999, had much of the world in a chokehold. If I were tech savvy, I'd be able to tell you why computer scientists saw this as a potentially unsolvable threat, but what I can tell you is that governments set up contingency plans, businesses expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, fearmongering was rampant, and my dad bought an absurd amount of water gallon jugs to store in the basement.
And in the end? The clock hit midnight and nothing cataclysmic happened. But like, what if it had dudes?
Y2K is a total smoke sesh ‘what if?' concept from writer/director Kyle Mooney, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live from 2013-2022. Mooney's feature film debut is probably not what most people would think of when it comes to A24 horror, unless we've got any big Slice (2018) fans out here. If you're a fellow appreciator of the awkward sweetness of Mooney's Inside SoCal sketches and the way in which they embraced the dumb but could also be surprisingly poignant, then Y2K sits comfortably within that same space.
Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison star as Eli and Danny, a pair of high school best friends who see the new millennium as a chance to make a name for themselves, shed the perception that they're nobodies, and maybe, just maybe, hook up with chicks. The two get their opportunity when Eli's crush, the popular and brilliant Laura (Rachel Zegler), invites them to a New Year's Eve house party. What starts as a drunken night of high school debauchery and awkwardness spirals into chaos and bloodshed as soon as the clock hits midnight. Household appliances assemble themselves into a small army of hive-mind-controlled robots and begin to lay siege to the small town.
Eli and his friends escape alongside two other classmates, Ash (Lachlan Watson) and CJ (Daniel Zolghadri), whose dueling tastes in music put them at odds. They find sanctuary at a hideout run by the Kollective, stoners who consider themselves revolutionaries and include video store manager Garrett (Kyle Mooney), Laura's community college attending ex-boyfriend Jonas (Mason Gooding), and Nugz (Miles Robbins) who's just there for a good time.
Though John Connor and the Resistance they are not, the group prepares to take the fight to the machines after learning of their plans to enslave the human race and use the electricity from their brains as fuel. The robots quickly prove that Eli and The Kollective don't stand a chance without some backup from a disillusioned hero who's come rollin' into town, Fred Durst, who emerges as a messianic figure whose gift of song has the power to unite the people.
While the nature of this attack appearing to be an isolated event from the characters' perspective, does raise questions of logic about the absence of military response, the distance to the nearest town, Y2K scoots past such concerns and blazes forward with a kind of bleary-eyed abandon. Some will undoubtedly find this frustrating, much like the quirky 2017 dramedy Brigsby Bear, co-written by and starring Mooney, Y2K works in the context of its own fictional reality manifested through a haze of well-intentioned nostalgia.
However many implausibilities of the nature of the attack are stacked on each other, the practical effects used to create the robots, and the combination of suit work, puppetry, remote control, and stop-motion does make the threat feel grounded and dangerous. There is plenty to be amused by, but a ten-foot-tall robot cobbled together from computer monitors, speakers, and a lawnmower, wielding rusty electric garden shears and possessing the power to blind humans with optimum screen brightness, is no laughing matter.
It feels refreshing to see nostalgia explored through a lens outside of the '80s, and much praise is owed to costume designer Katina Danabassis (Lady Bird, Bodies Bodies Bodies) who expertly recreates the look of the late '90s. The soundtrack, featuring hits from Chumbawamba, Sisqo, Brian McKnight, Limp Bizkit, and others, also lends itself well to immersing the film in its '90s aesthetic. But for horror and cult film enthusiasts, Mooney's appreciation and reverence for '90s films of that ilk add another layer of fun to Y2K.
A VHS collector since childhood, Mooney plugs in references to Hardware, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, The Lawnmower Man, Hackers, and The Rage: Carrie 2. There's not a critically beloved film in the mix, and that feels like the point of Y2K. From Limp Bizkit and cult movies to the characters themselves, Mooney's film is an ode to oddities and rejects that mean nothing to many, but are everything for a few.
And ironically, the millennium made many of these things more acceptable. How else could I explain spending $30 on a collector's edition Blu-ray of The Lawnmower Man? Y2K supposes that if there's any means to stave off the onslaught of technology-enabled mind control, it's those pieces of humanity, the idiosyncratic and unconventional efforts, that allow you to just be you.
