Y2K is a 2024 horror comedy that’s the directorial debut of Kyle Mooney. You may or may not know Mooney as a Saturday Night Live cast member from 2013 to 2022, but he also co-wrote and starred in a weird movie called BRIGSBY BEAR (2017) and I would highly recommend Saturday Morning All Star Hits! (S.M.A.S.H.!), an eight episode parody of ‘90s children’s programming he co-created in 2021. This shares with those a surface appearance of millennial nostalgia but with such specific pop cultural observations and such weird comedy ideas that it never feels like “Hey, remember that!?” in a bad way. The joke isn’t ha, we used to have VHS, it’s that an evil VCR kills somebody by ejecting a dubbed and hand-labelled VARSITY BLUES at their head.

As you may guess from the title this is set on a New Year’s Eve, 1999 when a sort of Y2K problem does happen – not computer systems breaking down, but electronic devices forming a shared consciousness, combining together into robots and trying to take over the world. Tamagotchis and iMacs attached to wheels and power drills going around attacking people. The animatronic effects (by Weta Workshop!) remind me of VIRUS, but instead of happening on a boat it revolves around a high school party. It’s kinda like SUPERBAD meets MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE.

Eli (Jaeden Martell, IT) is a nice but very uncool geek who doesn’t really fit into any of the cliques at his school. His music tastes aren’t very specific, and he doesn’t play sports because “I’m more behind the scenes” as equipment manager for the girl’s basketball team. He has a longtime crush on Laura (Rachel Zegler, WEST SIDE STORY), who is very popular but he talks to her on AIM and has a genuine friendship with her because she’s into computer programming and she can’t talk to her other friends about that stuff.

Eli’s best friend Danny (Julian Dennison, HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE) is funny/obnoxious/lovable/embarrassing in the John Belushi/Jonah Hill mold, and when they find out Laura broke up with her community college student boyfriend Jonas (Mason Gooding, SCREAM 2022) Danny pushes Eli to go to the party she’s going to be at and try to be the one to kiss her at midnight.

Mooney and co-writer Evan Winter take their time getting to the horror, luring us in to the plight of the teenage lovelorn and awkward. When there’s a problem with the music at the party Danny puts on Eli’s “Bad@$$ Y2K Mix” CD and gets everyone dancing to “The Thong Song.” It’s kind of painful to watch Eli stand back meekly smiling as the supportive friend, but having no idea how to make a connection with people like Danny does. It’s his CD that saved the party, but no one knows that and he’s still on the outside of everyone else having fun. When he spots Laura and goes over to her he has a real good rapport with her until the popular people come over, and then he’s out of his element again.

When the clock strikes midnight and the sci-fi-horror shit begins, the kills start coming so fast and furious that it’s a little shocking – you gotta be ready to find out who are actually going to be the main characters after an initial round of slaughter. Eli and Laura end up escaping with a mismatched group including Ash (Lachlan Watson, Glen and Glenda on Chucky) and CJ (Daniel Zolghadri, EIGHTH GRADE), who bicker because Ash is into Slipknot and Korn while CJ has a crew called P.O.I. (Prophets of Intelligence) and only respects “underground MCs” who “spit, like, real truth.”

C.J. is a funny character because he’s a snob who does some funny-bad quasi-intellectual freestyles but I suspect Mooney shares some of his music tastes. There’s a joke where the different cliques at the party have their own music playing, including swing revival dorks in fedoras dancing to Brian Setzer Orchestra. But the hip hop kids are listening to “93 ’til Infinity” – nothing undignified about that. I relate to C.J. saying “I don’t listen to that mainstream bullshit” and mentioning Soundbombing II, so I have to somewhat support him, but Mooney still makes it a funny caricature of a type of dude. Impressive feat.

When CJ and Ash are bitterly arguing about whose style of music is better Eli says, “I kinda like it all, you know?” and Laura says “I don’t really like music.” So CJ and Ash share a moment of shock and disdain for them. It’s a great joke and it also gets into something I often wonder about. When I was a teenager earlier in that decade, so many people formed social groups around a style of music they listened to. I wonder how much that even exists today – it seems like the ways young people listen to and discover music and their attitudes toward it are pretty different, so I expect there’s not as much of that.

The group settles on Laura’s plan to head to “the old factory” where there won’t be electronics and where Eli and Danny’s older stoner/video store clerk friend Garret is having a party (with fellow jam band enthusiasts). Garret is played by Mooney with many characteristics that will be familiar to people who have seen his work, and I find him to be constantly funny in so many different ways. Not having to be as grounded as the leads he’s able to filter many sketches worth of ridiculous ideas into him, two favorites being when he out of nowhere implies a tragic backstory and when he starts acting like he’s in THE MATRIX or some shit to become an action hero to battle a robot.

I don’t think this is a movie that pushes period detail too hard or in too obvious a way, but it also never forgets what era it’s set in, especially when it comes to electronics. It opens with a couple minutes of very detailed screen time featuring the flying toasters screensaver, AOL login screen from dial-up, a CD burner, and a very low res RealPlayer video of Bill Clinton. Later there’s a very slow loading of a porn picture so they’re excited when it gets to the boobs. There are analog camcorders, Tae Bo tapes, dancing baby, and a superb use of the AOL voice.

The soundtrack features prominent uses of “Praise You,” “Flagpole Sitta” and “Tubthumping,” obvious late ‘90s songs that don’t violate the detail that Eli’s musical tastes aren’t very refined. It doesn’t suffer from “every kid has THE THING and EVIL DEAD posters in their bedroom” syndrome – the displays in the video store are pretty random: MYSTERY MEN, DUDLEY DO-RIGHT, HEART AND SOULS, DRAGONHEART. (Also BABE, though. That’s a classic.) Danny doesn’t rent something cool, he just gets JUNIOR because “I’ve always wanted to see this. It looks tight. ‘Nothing is inconceivable.’”

The different tones used are an odd mix, arguably a little off balance. The horror concept is so silly and jokey, but the friendships and some of the tragic deaths are treated with sincerity. I think there’s some intentional whiplash in there, and I kind of like it – for example there’s an incredible joke (INCREDIBLE JOKE SPOILER) where they’re all suited up to escape the party using skateboards and things they found in the garage, but a major character tries to do a sick rollerblade trick, bites it, and dies instantly with masterful comic timing. But immediately Ash is mourning him and I felt bad for her. (It was pretty fuckin funny though.) These are risky tonal shifts, but for me they mostly work. They seem like more of a provocation than a lack of discipline, in tune with Mooney’s interest in blurring the lines between the ridiculous and the kinda creepy.

One secret weapon is a really good score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans (ENEMY, A VIGILANTE, SPEAK NO EVIL) that can invoke ’90s action scene electronica or Danny-Elfman-esque gothic with equal effectiveness. With the backing of A24, Mooney has a really impressive team here – he even got director of photography Bill Pope (DARKMAN, CLUELESS, THE MATRIX), can you believe that shit? I guess he also did UNFROSTED though.

I think you need to be invested in the teen emotions for it to fully work, but it’s undeniably a comedy and I laughed quite a bit. It’s not just easy jokes, either – some are really top shelf. In the next paragraph I’m going to spoil a surprise that happens (which I had already heard about and still thought was funny) and maybe my favorite joke in the movie.

SPOILER PARAGRAPH. The survivors make their way back to the video store, where they find a shadowy figure hiding out. It turns out to be rap-rock star Fred Durst (playing himself). He speaks gravely about how the rest of Limp Bizkit died at their concert that night and he has given up because “without Limp I’m nothing” and “the old world, that’s gone.” But Ash makes an impassioned speech about the power of his music and hands him a backwards red baseball hat that, after some hesitation, he proudly dons, answering the call. Then they’re ready to fight back and they get hyped up by trashing the store to the tune of his song “Break Stuff,” ripping down a PATCH ADAMS poster and everything. And the beautiful part is that Fred Durst high fives CJ but CJ is very hesitant and clearly uncomfortable about high fiving the guy from Limp Bizkit.

Some of the running gags are funnier than others, but it builds to a pretty spectacular showdown with an ever-growing mountain of electronics at the school, and finds ways to play with the tropes of ‘90s “cyber” movies, including a crudely animated avatar for the electronics that is definitely an homage to LAWNMOWER MAN. Zegler is really great, totally charming and crush-worthy but also able to seem dead serious during a hacking montage where she says a whole list of things like “open sesame” and “going in deep. Try to keep up” and “Jackpot – we’re in!”

It might be too much of a nerd fantasy that Laura would fall in love with Eli, but I think Martell captures that painfully-self-conscious age very accurately while also selling that he and Laura enjoy joking around with each other. Crucially, the overcoming of fears (either in courtship or saving the world) is never treated as any kind of macho “manning up” bullshit – he comes to it through the wholesome encouragement of his friend believing in him and wanting him to be happy. Also, he never abandons his “nice guy” personality to be more like the other guys. He doesn’t rescue any damsels or humiliate his romantic rival, he just supports Laura, speaking up for her skills when belittled by others or herself, and convincing her she can use them to save the world, which she does. Spoiler.

If any of this sounds fun I definitely recommend it. When I watched it I thought it was pretty good, and it’s seeming better and better the more it soaks in.