By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
I remember exactly where I was on December 31, 1999: I was with five other friends at a friend’s house, playing Mario Kart 64 and South Park: Chef’s Luv Shack, and we weren’t too concerned about the end of the world, but at the same time, we all breathed a sigh of relief at 12:01 AM on January 1, 2000 when nothing happened. For months, the media had been hyping Y2K, a critical computer error that could, allegedly, wipe out all technology in existence. The sophomoric horror comedy Y2K imagines what could have happened if, instead, technology tried to kill people, and while it bombed in theaters, it’s now one of Max’s hottest movies.
A Killer House Party
Y2K is a perfectly aimed nostalgic movie for everyone ages 37 to 48 with nonstop references to the turn of the century, including a killer Tamogotchi, a time-warping soundtrack, and an amazing cameo that you should not go out and spoil for yourself. In fact, the movie is at its best right after the stroke of midnight when three uncool friends, Danny (Julian Dennison), Eli (Jaedan Martell), and Garrett (the film’s writer/director, Kyle Mooney), are at a high school house party. All of a sudden, technology is trying to kill the kids, from a VCR bashing a girl’s head in, to the Tamogotchi, until finally, a bizarre collection of tech referred to as The Screenslayer straight up stabs people.
The boys are joined by Farkas (Stranger Things’ Eduardo Franco) and Eli’s crush, Laura (Rachel Zegler), as they seek refuge at the school and try to save their town from the deadly virus. Physically growing in size as the film goes along, the Amalgamation starts taking control of the townspeople, turning the invisible threat of a virus into a standard, massive movie monster. Like the real computer glitch, Y2K is far more interesting in the abstract, before it devolves into a standard horror movie, because the early house party massacre is one of the best horror movie scenes of the decade, and the rest of the film is…there.
Not A Funny Enough Comedy, Not A Scary Enough Horror
Y2K almost combines a 2000’s 2000s-era teen comedy with a horror comedy, but the two halves of the movie, like pineapple on pizza, don’t taste great together. It’s not as funny as it could be as a straight-up comedy, and not as dark or inventive as it could be as a pure horror film, but it has some great comedic beats, and a few creative deaths, but only one where they both perfectly combine to create a moment so shocking and unexpected, it will get a reaction out of anyone. It’s disjointed, poorly paced, and misses the mark, but in a few years, this will be a sleeper horror hit.
When it was in theaters, and it was in theaters, this is not a streaming original movie, but since no one went to see it, you’re forgiven. Y2K earned $4 million despite the rather modest movie budget of $15 million; it was a substantial flop and a disappointment when it debuted on December 6, 2024. As its current success shows, maybe going to theaters was a mistake, but it’s a streaming hit.
Y2K Is A Future Hit
For everything that Y2K does poorly, the movie makes up for it with enthusiasm and the infectious joy that only comes from a director’s first major film. Kyle Mooney is still trying to find his voice and style, but at least he’s taking a huge swing with this horror comedy mashup and isn’t playing it safe for most of the movie. In a few years, the corny dialogue and 2000s nostalgia will make this a hit to a generation that can’t remember a world without cellphones and never experienced Woodstock 1999
Y2K is now streaming on Max.
