In the time leading up to New Year’s Day 2000, the disastrous “Y2K” problem was on the horizon.

There was fear that computer devices, unable to understand the shift to the year 2000 due to a potential problem with their displaying dates, would fail to operate. This apprehension created many preparation scenarios: President Bill Clinton appointed a council to prevent the collapse of the devices. Some Americans stocked up on ammunition. The United Nations even convened over the issue. 

At Kyle Mooney’s house on Dec. 31, 1999, his mother had stocked up on snacks and water, and Mooney — then 15 — watched the MTV New Year’s special with a friend. Nothing of scale ever actually occurred, but such isn’t the case in his directorial debut “Y2K,” where, just after midnight, all electronic and technological devices are taken over by an artificial intelligence violently committed to ruling humanity. Mooney first pitched the idea to co-writer Evan Winter around New Year’s Day 2019. 

“...I woke up after a New Year’s Eve party, and just had the seed of an idea of, ‘Oh, there should be a movie about high school kids going to a party and Y2K actually happens,’” Mooney said. “In terms of prior to that, I was maybe a little obsessed with Y2K because it was such a letdown, and so that must’ve been in the back of my brain when that idea came into the ether.” 

On Dec. 5, The Panther participated in a college publication round table with the director to discuss the new film, which addresses the apocalyptic holiday occurrence through the eyes of teenagers, principally Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Laura (Rachel Zegler). Eli and his friend Danny (Julian Dennison) attend a party when the clocks switch over, a party that is quickly overrun by murderous, “alive” devices.

One of the stand-out elements of the film is the artificial intelligence’s joining together of those devices. The AI orders pieces of tech to assemble themselves together, creating human-like amalgamations made from computers, cables and other items. Some are relatively harmless, like Eli’s own computer — nicknamed “Cool Blue” by the production — while others, like “Screenslayer,” are humongous, murderous and disturbing.

In the case of those two amalgamations, practical effects were utilized, with actors standing in for the two “characters.”

“When (Evan and I) first started talking about the idea, we were very excited about making a movie that we would’ve seen in the theaters in 1999,” Mooney said. “...But there’s obviously something very tangible to (practical effects), and the fact that our actors can actually respond to a robot in the same space with them is incredibly awesome, and you can feel it when you’re watching it.” 

“Y2K” is a film packed with the aesthetics and culture of the 1990s — including the people. Members of the band Limp Bizkit and “Clueless” star Alicia Silverstone have roles in the film, and the 91-minute runtime is filled with memorabilia from the decade. 

When it came to production design, Mooney would go on YouTube to research timely video yearbooks for fashion inspiration; he also pulled photographs of bedrooms. A fun point for him was designing a video store that Eli and Danny frequent.

“...(The video store) is such an emblematic space of the time, and I feel like it was really cool sort of thinking of what my video stores in my neighborhood looked like and what Evan’s did and then what our production designer’s did and pulling pics and sort of trying to come up with an amalgamation of something that hopefully is representative of any person who lived in that time and could say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s enough like the video store I remember going to,’” Mooney told The Panther. 

The filmmaker has roles both in front of and behind the camera: acting as the director and co-writer, he also portrays Garret, the owner of the video store. When acting, Mooney relied on other crew members — like Winter and director of photography Bill Pope — to know if a scene was good.

“I like to have another pair of eyes on me… I would not say (acting in a film I’m directing is) easier,” Mooney said. “I sort of do, to a degree, typically when I’m working on something that I wrote, direct myself a little bit, I’ll try a lot of things out. And I’ve been making videos long enough that I sort of have a pretty specific idea of the way I want my words to sound.” 

He continued: “I’m always open to direction if there is another director, but generally I like to have somebody else out there to be like, ‘That was good, we got it. We feel good’... but I like being told what to do, to be honest.” 

Regarding production, Mooney is open to taking any avenue to bringing a project to life.  

“I do truly love it all,” he said. “I always feel nervous talking about my art or my process or something like that because it feels boastful in some way or another, but I’m kind of down to take whatever avenue there is if it means that I can get the thing made.” 

In the case of “Y2K,” that avenue involved Mooney serving as the film’s director. For potential future directorial endeavors, he desires smaller-scale projects, as “Y2K,” to him, was intimidating.

“I think I see myself in the future probably doing variations of it,” he said. “...But truly, I like it all. I do like acting, I like writing and I especially like acting my own words… I see it happening in the future, but I’m also not in a rush.”