Kyle Mooney’s Y2K trailer is Maximum Overdrive by way of Superbad

The first half of the trailer for Kyle Mooney’s upcoming comedy, Y2K, feels like it could be the trailer for any movie, namely a movie called Superbad. The year is 1999, and Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison), standing in for Michael Cera and Jonah Hill (who produced the film), are going to a New Year’s Eve party, so Eli can kiss his crush Laura (Rachel Zegler). Everything is going to plan. Eli got the vodka with the gold floating in it, and Laura is surprisingly into him when he’s getting down with his bad self. Go ahead, shake that thing, Eli.

Then midnight hits.

While the Y2K bug was averted thanks to a massive infrastructure overhaul that the U.S. spent $100 billion on and years enacting, the Y2K of Y2K postulates a different scenario. The lights flicker and return, and with that comes a Tamagotchi-controlled Battle Bot ready to kill all humans. Machines, particularly those associated with the late ’90s, literally band together, creating humanoid robots made of various consumer electronics. Y2K is a stealth horror-comedy that brings the cocaine-inspired mechanical madness of Maximum Overdrive to a teen booze party. Using effects reminiscent of Gremlins and a tone that feels more like Shaun Of The Dead, the movie offers a turn-of-the-century party where ‘90s nostalgia killed you even before it existed.

Directed by Kyle Mooney and written by Mooney and Evan Winter, Y2K is Mooney’s first foray back into moviemaking since his 2017 comedy Brigsby Bear. The trailer certainly has his fingerprints all over it, with Jobe from The Lawnmower Man telling a pack of teens to “you’re fucked” and Mooney himself using Devil Sticks as a weapon. All that, plus Fred Durst in his second major film role of the year? The year 2000 is going to rule.

Y2K opens in theaters on December 6.