By 
Y2K (2024)
New Years Eve, 1999, The Last Party Before Y2K
Remember when everyone genuinely thought the world might end on New Year’s Eve 1999? Y2K, directed by Saturday Night Live vetren Kyle Mooney (his feature debut) and co-written with Evan Winter, turns that millennial paranoia into a campy teen horror-comedy — but only half-hits the mark. For about 20–30 minutes, it’s a glorious nostalgia trip. From AOL Instant Messenger to mix-CD jams to Tamagotchis, the film lays on the late-’90s vibe thick and effective.
Nothing says millennium panic like a star-print mesh top!
We open at a suburban blowout on December 31st, 1999 — glow sticks, frosted tips, dial-up chatrooms, and every teen trying to squeeze in one last party before midnight. Our trio: Eli (Jaeden Martell), Danny (Julian Dennison), and Laura (Rachel Zegler). Eli’s the shy kid pining after Laura, too nervous to make a move even as Danny eggs him on to try for a midnight kiss. Laura, meanwhile, is off stealing booze with her friends Trevor (Jacob Moskovitz), Madison (Ellie Ricker), and Raleigh (Lauren Balone) — cool, sharp, and just out of Eli’s reach. That first act is a warm, nostalgic vibe-fest. Think Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) meets Superbad (2007).
Then midnight strikes — and the film descends into madness. The dreaded Y2K bug manifests as sentient tech: VCRs flinging VHS tapes, microwaves melting heads, Tamagotchis drilling through skulls. The town collapses in gleeful, absurd splatter. Partygoers scatter, and our group ends up in an abandoned mill with no power, dodging killer appliances as the carnage mounts. Along the way, they link up with Garrett, a sardonic VHS-store clerk, and Laura’s ex, Jonas (Mason Gooding), who reveal that every machine has merged into a global hive-mind called the Amalgamation. Its plan? Enslave humanity with brain-implanted chips, reducing townsfolk to obedient, glassy-eyed drones. By the finale, we’re in the high school gym, bleachers filled with zombified classmates and teachers, as Laura scrambles to upload the kill code and shut it all down.
Before Google Maps, you just … peeked out the curtain and prayed.
The film’s momentum, though, doesn’t survive—and Danny’s mishandled death is a major reason why. He’s written off abruptly, without emotional payoff, and the void he leaves is palpable. Eli and Laura are left to slog through increasingly lifeless scenes—especially in the woods-and-mill sequences—where urgency gives way to dull, dragging stretches. What should feel tense and immediate plays instead like survival in slow motion.
Martell and Zegler have no chemistry to carry the film’s emotional load, and while I like Zegler as an actress (she’s got natural warmth), Y2K does her no favors. Fred Durst randomly turns up, sticks around, and adds little beyond, “Wait, is that really Fred Durst?” Director Mooney even wanders through as a stoner VHS-store clerk, Garrett — a goofy cameo, funny in the moment, but it feels misplaced. Nineties teen icon Alicia Silverstone pops in as Laura’s mom, with Tim Heidecker playing her dad — Silverstone serving as a nostalgic but underdeveloped nod to the era. The villain, the Amalgamation, is weak and nonsensical, becoming less coherent the more it’s explained.
When the fate of the world depends on a dial-up connection.
Still, some things work. The production design nails the late-90s aesthetic, the soundtrack is a certified bop, and the practical effects — junk-pile monster-bots, stop-motion flourishes — are creatively wild. The gore? Okay at best: messy enough for grindhouse fun, never gnarly enough to shock.
By the end, Y2K feels like a party that peaked too soon. The nostalgia lands, the premise is solid, but the execution is clunky, the pacing drags, and the big finale fizzles instead of explodes. Like the real Y2K, it makes a lot of noise, sparks some panic, and then mostly just crashes without much impact.
2.5 / 5 – Alright
Reviewed by Stu Cachia (S-Littner)
Y2K is released through Roadshow Entertainment Australia
