SXSW Film Review: Y2K

Ah, the good ol’ days. Burning mixtapes on CDs, recording freestyle rap battles on camcorders, messaging your class crush on AOL chat boards. Frosted tips. Home workouts. Nu metal. And who could forget the night the computers reached Singularity, killing and enslaving all of humanity? What a time.

First film from Saturday Night Live cast member Kyle Mooney, Y2K answers the question, “What if that computer bug actually unleashes Armageddon at midnight?” Turns out an army of superintelligent desktops wielding power drills and chainsaws hacks us to pieces. But hey, at least the stoner from the video store shares his bong with the high schoolers. Things are about to get real weird, real gory, real fast.

Written by Mooney and Evan Winter and produced by Jonah Hill and Chris Storer (creator of FX on Hulu hit The Bear), Y2K takes root in the branch of comedy that made stars of millennials like Hill; this is Superbad (2007) meets This Is The End (2013). It’s over the top, silly to a fault, and something so unserious as to wonder how – and under what influence – was this made?

Now, I must admit: I wasn’t a teenager, or even alive, for the turn of the millennium. But neither were many of this murderer’s row of Gen Z cast members: Rachel Zegler (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Jaeden Martell (It), Julian Dennison (Deadpool 2), Lachlan Watson (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Daniel Zolghadri (Funny Pages), Mason Gooding (Scream), and The Kid Laroi in his acting debut. While the leads will surely pique the interest of those raised on the Internet, the pop culture references are so niche as to only land with those who remember the pain of forgetting to feed their Tamagotchis. (The final act hinges on a much-maligned rock-rapper cameo that, unless you wore JNCOs to school, may leave audiences scratching their heads.)

At South by Southwest, where Y2K had its world premiere late Saturday night, a raucous Paramount Theatre roared with laughter – until the nostalgia wore off about halfway through. The story centers on Eli (Martell) and Danny (Dennison), two dorky friends with no plans for New Year’s Eve, 1999. Bored and drunk off the liquor cabinet, they decide to crash a party where Eli’s crush, Laura (Zegler), is in attendance. When the clock strikes midnight, every machine from the kitchen appliances to RC cars become weapons of decapitating destruction. The movie loses its steam quickly as the bodies – and body parts – pile up.

Still, Y2K, with all of its cringe-inducing humor and totally buggin’ kills, has heart and a clear devotion to the bit. So Nineties kids, gather the home skillet Bizkits, inhale some devil’s lettuce, and strap in: This is all those end-of-the-world conspiracy theories and a bag of chips.

Y2K

Headliners, World Premiere

This article appears in SXSW 2024 Festival Guide, Part II and March 8 • 2024.