Movie Review: Y2K

I found Kyle Mooney quite funny when he was a cast member on Saturday Night Live, feeling that many of the sketches he was involved in were often the funniest of any given night’s show. So when I heard that he had written and directed a horror comedy for A24 based around the idea of the Y2K computer bug being real and causing the technology of the era to go on a murderous rampage I thought I would be in for a goofy, fun ride. Alas, either Mooney or his cowriter Evan Winter must have done something to piss off Clippy, as the old Microsoft Office assistant appears to have removed most of the fun.

Best friends Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison) are wildly unpopular, even winding up as the target of bullying from their high school’s “freak” crowd. They are spending New Year’s Eve 1999 together playing video games when they decide that they should stop putting up with being “losers” and head to a party that all of their classmates, including Eli’s newly single crush Laura (Rachel Zegler), are expected to be at. So, they break into the liquor cabinet to build up their courage and head out.

At the party, Danny comes out of his shell and finds himself being accepted by his peers while Eli is having a notably worse night and is beginning to consider leaving when the countdown to midnight occurs and is quickly followed by the electricity in the house surging off and on and one of the partygoers winding up dead in strange circumstances. From this point on, the movie shifts gears from a sweet but ordinary teen coming-of-age story to a cheesily bonkers sci-fi horror that sees the teens fighting for their lives against ever-larger robots that have assembled themselves out of household electronics.

It’s a dumb idea, but as someone who enjoyed recent movies like Cocaine Bear and Slotherhouse, I will be the first to say that dumb ideas can make for a great time at the movies. Unfortunately this isn’t one of them. It’s often clear that Mooney and Winter are attempting to craft a loving parody of many of the tropes of the era, in particular in regards to high school comedies and campy cyberthrillers, but it too often feels more like a facsimile of said films than a spoof. Sure, most of the references to life in 1999 will trigger some nostalgic chuckles out of those of us who lived them, but they never really barely count as jokes and almost completely vanish once the chaos begins.

The cast at least all do good work, making even the movie’s most paper thin characters endearing. You’ll even wind up rooting for Fred Durst by the end, who appears as himself, and that’s something I never thought I’d say. That alone should at least keep viewers engaged enough for one viewing, though a horror comedy that is never frightening and only rarely funny is unlikely to bring anyone back for a second. Like the Tamagotchi, Y2K is likely headed for the scrap heap of history, though unlike those weird little toys it won’t be fondly remembered. ★★