A24's 'Y2K' Makes a Late-'90s Paranoia Into Reality!

In the Before Times, before smartphones, social media, and actual AI, but at the dawn of the Digital Age, the world had massive paranoia over the onset of technological advancements that would begin with the new millennium. “Y2K”, as people called it, was a presupposed glitch where, at the stroke of Midnight on New Year's Eve 1999, all digital clocks would revert to 1900 instead of 2000, kicking off an apocalypse where our electronics banned together to rebel against the world that humans trapped them in. Now, given the fact that I am typing these words on a computer that does not want to kill me (at least I hope), clearly that did not happen. But, what if it did? Enter the trailer for A24’s upcoming movie Y2K. That question we just posed is answered with our first look at this directorial debut from "SNL" alum Kyle Mooney.

It starts out like your typical coming-of-age movie, and even when the s@#$ emoji hits fan, that stays true throughout. Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison play your typical '90s high school geeks, with Jaeden’s character having a crush on Rachel Zegler because, well, why wouldn’t you?! They go to a New Year’s Eve party in hopes of him being able to confess his love, and right as he sees her with some other guy (whomp-whomp), the clock hits Midnight and the year 2000 has begun… GASP! All the lights in the house go off, and what starts as a joke of “Y2K is reallll” proceeds to become not a joke when one guy gets burned alive to the sounds of “You’ve got mail!”. Yeah, wouldn’t call that the funniest "ha ha" experience in the world.

As the rest of the electronics start going rogue and killing people in the house to the iconic sounds of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping”, the trio make their escape alongside some other characters. From there, the trailer becomes a series of brief glimpses of these young teenagers trying to not only survive the computer apocalypse but fight back against it and, maybe, find love in the process. Seems like your typical New Year’s Day if you ask me.

Of course, there is one big question looming over the premise of this film -- the fact that "midnight" is not universal. It happens at 24 different times around the world. So, assuming the events of this film really are due to the Y2K computer glitch, would the characters not have been warned ahead of time of the inevitable apocolypse from countries/regions in a later time zone than them that would have already experienced it?

Well, either way, the trailer gives a fun first impression of Y2K! Having premiered earlier this year the South By Southwest film festival, there seems to be enough good buzz from that and other festivals to make this one you know will be a good time at the movies.  Seeing as how you have Jonah Hill onboard as producer (he knows something about good coming-of-age movies and the late-'90s), we think it’s safe to say that Y2K will be fine. The film releases on December 6 and is rated R for violence against humans committed by a Tamagotchi.