Y2K

This 10-minute short is mostly set in one room, as a family retreats into a sort of bunker to get themselves through the Y2K disaster - and, as far as this film is concerned, it is a disaster. There's not a lot to the story. As it begins, the male is on a short wave radio talking to people from around the world on New Year's Eve 1999 to find out what's happening when the clock strikes midnight. (My personal favourite was the man who said he was glad to have stayed in his village without any contact with the modern world - but, um, isn't he talking on a short wave radio?) Anyway, this presents a worst case scenario, although we never actually see any of it. It's all from radio reports (stuck in a room getting all the reports from the media reminded me a bit of "Night Of The Living Dead.") Disasters happen everywhere as midnight strikes, and the United States prepares for the worst. The president imposes a curfew and martial law is declared, and suddenly a stranger shows up at the bunker (or whatever it is) who's been injured by a landmine apparently planted by the male figure in the home to protect the family from the marauding hordes that are expected when chaos strikes at midnight. They take the guy in to help him, and then the movie suddenly comes to an end after obviously identifying the stranger as some sort of escaped prisoner.

Now, it's a kind of tongue in cheek watch - because nothing happened when the calendar suddenly changed to 2000. Back then ... This was probably something that was on a lot of minds, because there was a lot of talk about computers crashing, and electric grids crashing and planes crashing, etc. I have a vague memory of watching TV as midnight was striking in Australia, to see if anything would happen. By the time midnight struck here in Canada, we were pretty complacent - because nothing had actually happened anywhere. This film offers a bit of the sense of paranoia that was certainly around at the time. It's interesting from a historical/cultural perspective, although somewhat lacking in any substantive content. Still, to be honest, it's kind of fun to watch. 7/10