When I found out one of my all-time favorite bands, Foo Fighters, were going to be releasing and starring in their very own horror flick, I knew instantly I’d have to check it out and write up a review. As a longtime fan of the band, I was thrilled to see them embark on such a unique and ambitious project, yet another accomplishment on their extended roster of impressive feats. Blending music, horror, and comedy, Studio 666, filmed in secret during the pandemic, is a campy, kitschy, fast-paced and brilliant wild ride from start to finish.
From the mastermind that is Dave Grohl, Studio 666 follows the Foo Fighters through their unsettling and supernatural journey moving into a dilapidated Encino mansion steeped in grisly rock history, as the band seeks out an evolved and leveled-up soundscape for recording their highly-anticipated tenth album. Upon moving in, frontman Grohl finds himself grappling with a stubborn case of writer’s block - and blood lust - that threatens both the completion of the album and the lives of the band.
There’s plenty to enjoy about this film. In the opening scene, I was delighted to see recent maven of horror Jenna Ortega make an appearance, as well as Whitney Cummings, Will Forte, Leslie Grossman, and Jeff Garlin, who has been a favorite of mine since his Wizards of Waverly Place days. In addition to the star-studded cast, Studio 666 is chock-full of tongue-in-cheek humor, brotherly digs from the band to one another, and impressive comedic timing. The film boasts great visual effects, and is abundant in blood and gore - which is exactly how I like my movies. I definitely admired the creativity in the script as each band member met their untimely, graphic demise. Be prepared for a hearty belly laugh one minute, and then getting guts shoved in your face the next - as Grohl, possessed by something quite unholy, takes his own album title One By One far too literally.
My favorite moment of the film was when music superstar Lionel Richie popped in for an unexpected, quick, cheeky cameo. I won’t reveal too much, but you’re in for a laugh! In addition, I thought the entirety of the band did a great job with the acting, especially Grohl, who has a bit of a background in acting after his appearance as Satan in Tenacious D’s slapstick musical-comedy The Pick of Destiny. Even drummer Taylor Hawkins, who has admitted he didn’t bother learning the script and instead improvised all his lines, was a treat to watch on screen. For (mostly) first-time actors, the Foos definitely made a good impression.
Fans of metal will enjoy the film’s soundtrack, which features not only a number of Foo Fighters’ greatest hits and deep cuts, but heavy, sludgy material recorded by Foo Fighters’ as their evil, sinister alias, Dream Widow.
Currently, the film holds a modest 55% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, and an 81% audience score. While not favored by critics, fans seem to love Studio 666, further proving my point that the flick was made for the fans and not the critics. With Studio 666, Foo Fighters’ never set out to release a billion-dollar, record-breaking, Oscar-worthy, perfect score cinematic blockbuster, but instead, they created a low-budget, campy slasher movie, where the primary goal is to make the fans happy and let the band go wild and have fun, doing something they’ve never done before. It’s safe to say the band has achieved and surpassed this goal. In conversation with Rolling Stone, Grohl proved this point and spoke further about the film’s inspiration, saying “It’s part The Shining, part Amityville Horror, part Evil Dead. The ‘rock band film’ as a tradition seems to have disappeared…We’re not going for There Will Be Blood. We just want to have fun in that old tradition of rock & roll.”
Studio 666 is in theaters now and on-demand March 18th.