Studio 666

  

 

Studio 666

2022

Director- B. J. McDonnell

Cast- Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee, Whitney Cummings, Will Forte, Jeff Garlin, Leslie Grossman, Kerry King, Lionel Richie, John Carpenter, Jenna Ortega

            The rock band Foo Fighters are trying to produce their 10^th album but lead singer Dave Grohl is suffering from a severe creative block and can’t think of new material. In an effort to inspire their creativity, their manager sets them up to record in a now empty Encino  home that was once the site where several successful bands recorded. Unfortunately it was also the site of several murders when the leader singer of the band Dream Window brutally massacred his bandmates.

 

            The band is not thrilled with the arrangements but Dave runs roughshod over the group, talking them into living in the house for a month while they record. Dave can sense there is something special in the house and hopes it will unblock his creative constipation. 

            While exploring, he finds an old reel to reel tape from the band Dream Window. Upon playing it, demonic forces are unleashed that possess Dave. He is compelled to write a song, a song that when finished will unleash terrible Satanic powers.

            The best word that I can use to describe this movie is “odd.” Horror-comedy is a difficult tightrope to walk anyway without adding the element of the Foo Fighters playing fictionalized versions of themselves. à la Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. The movie is more of a parody than an actual horror movie, poking fun at many horror tropes, like pointlessly staying in an obviously deadly environment.  Don’t expect this to be a musical like Rocky Horror or Phantom of the Paradise. The music is a plot device not the star of the show. Having said that, Foo Fighters did record a song as the fake band Dream Window for the movie and it genuinely sounds like thrash metal. 

            There were many places in the movie that seemed like inside jokes, some that I got and some that I didn’t. Broadly there are horror jokes and music jokes (like Dave discovering a new note, “L sharp”) but there were other jokes that were over my head that probably required a more in depth knowledge of Foo Fighters or rock  music.

            The band members are the stars of the film and the acting performances are about what you would expect but they have some help. Will Forte and Whitney Cummings help support the comedic efforts. Horror fans may recognize Leslie Grossman from numerous episodes of American Horror Story. There is also a cameo by Jenna Ortega (The Babysitter Killer Queen and the new Scream relaunch) who is on her way to becoming a Scream Queen in her own right. Of course, horror fans will recognize John Carpenter, who is no stranger to music, as the studio engineer mixing the band’s recordings.

            The selling point for the film, at least for horror fans, in the creative old school gore. There are lots of really disgusting, bloody deaths in the movie, several that will cause you to laugh out loud. Also, I can say that I really didn’t know which direction the movie was going to go next which is a rarity in today’s movies.

            Fans of horror-comedy, or just odd movies, will want to check it out. Fans of Foo Fighters, or just old timer Generation Xers, will probably want to check it out too. I can remember owning Nevermind on cassette in 1991 and it was somehow comforting to see that Grohl was looking as old as me.