The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The Millennium refers to the date when the calendar moves over from the previous thousand years to the next. In specific, when we talk about ‘The Millennium’ we refer to the change from the years 1999 to 2000, which is actually the end of the second millennium in the common calendar.
The idea of The Millennium comes with many ideas attached to it. The most common was that it would herald the Biblical End Times due to prophecies that say Christ would return after a thousand years. There was also fear of widespread chaos due to failure of computer system over the Y2K bug – of older computers that would reset to 00 because of internal clocks that only calculated the years in the date in a two-digit notation (99 instead of 1999, 00 instead of 2000). In actually neither of these fears came about.
In older science-fiction works, the year 2000 was seen as the time The Future would arrive. Screen depictions of the Millennium leading up to the event cautiously saw it as a time of social renewal and looking forward. There were several works centred the Biblical End Times, one or two concerning the Y2K bug but relatively few overall.
Mind-bogglingly surreal, almost indescribable film from Joel Potrykus as a slacker attempts to complete a videogame sitting on a couch as assorted things including the Y2K apocalypse happen around him
Excellent Canadian-made End of the World film where actor/director Don McKellar eschews lavish big-budget spectacle for a wry, often haunting series of characters studies about how people meet the end
A Kathryn Bigelow directed Cyberpunk film scripted by James Cameron concerning an illicit technology that can replay memories. This offers a powerful vision of a socially divided L.A. on the eve of the millennium
Film that imagines what might have happened if the Y2K Bug had occurred and resulted in a machine revolution
Not an adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel but a biting satire made in Poland during Soviet occupation about how the pretext of an alien invasion is used to create an authoritarian regime and the way media is used to control the masses. A film more potent today than when it was made
The fifth film of the Found Footage horror anthology series, including one episode that is among the best of the series so far
Quirkily appealing Canadian fish out of water comedy where John the Baptist is sent to present-day Newfoundland just before the turn of the millennium to prevent the End of the World
Tim Burton adapts the classic Washington Irving ghost story, although throws most of it out, to make his own beautifully designed period piece spearheaded by another eccentric Johnny Depp performance
A darkly funny Hal Hartley film set on the eve of The Millennium as Jesus Christ wanders about Manhattan having doubts whether to unleash the Biblical Apocalypse
Early film from Danish director Anders Rønnow-Klarlund. This starts out as a plague outbreak drama and then does a bizarre mid-film twist to become a possession film
Spanish comedy produced to celebrate the turn of the millennium in which the fates of several people wind together on the eve of the end of the century
Film made to celebrate the millennium where a totalitarian government creates a wall that divides Belgium along linguistic lines
This was part of a late 90s spate of revival of the mummy movie. This effort from Highlander director Russell Mulcahy revives the genre with a modern arsenal of effects
Biopic of the so-called prophet Nostradamus, although this seems more interested in depicting him as a progressive thinker of his era than as a prophet. Directed by Roger Christian who next went on to make Battlefield Earth
The Omen and imitators had been exploiting Biblical End Times prophecies for years but this is one that approaches it from a Christian perspective. The film also started a wave of serious faith-based films that employed name actors in order to carry them to crossover audiences
A batshit crazy film involving Nostradamus who is a present-day cop, a time travelling assassin trying to bring about the Biblical Apocalypse at The Millennium, plus alternate timelines and a psychic FBI agent
Low-budget action film with Dolph Lundgren as a modern-day Knights Templar tasked with preventing The Devil returning to Earth at the millennium
David Seltzer, the screenwriter of The Omen, recycles himself here where Rachael Leigh Cook is caught up in the coming Biblical End of the World around the turn of the millennium
The Y2K Problem was a now largely forgotten social apocalypse that never happened so why someone is making a film about it now is a scratch of the head. This is a Backwoods Brutality film that abruptly jumps tracks to become a monster movie
Tsai Ming-Liang film made to celebrate the millennium about the taunting relationship that grows between a man and a woman affected by a hole left between their apartments by a plumber
Caper thriller with the gimmick of being set on the turning of the millennium, this is otherwise an empty-headed exercise where slick marketing triumphs over credible scripting over even connection between the leads
Arnold Schwarzenegger takes on The Devil on the eve of the millennium. This is essentially The Omen and one of its ilk having been reworked as a mindless big-budget action and effects movie
An inane French/Canadian-made children’s film about three cute creatures that come to help a boy stop the resurrection of the Tower of Babel on the eve of the millennium