I can appreciate what Dave Grohl and BJ McDonnell were going for with “Studio 666.” In spite of me being a big Foo Fighters fan, I respected what they were trying to do. “Studio 666” is a horror comedy musical with shades of “Evil Dead,” “The Exorcist,” and “We Are Still Here.” It’s also kind of a commentary on the compromises you make in order to acquire artistic success, but those more dire themes are passive at best. “Studio 666” looks like one of those movies that was more fun to make than anything else, and that’s both a caveat and advantage.
Members of the rock band Foo Fighters move into an Encino mansion steeped in grisly rock ‘n’ roll history to record their much anticipated 10th album. Once in the house, Dave Grohl finds himself grappling with supernatural forces that threaten both the completion of the album and the lives of the band members.
While it is fun to see the Foo Fighters have some fun with their personalities, at the end of the day they are not actors. Not by a long shot. In either case, while it’s not exactly laugh out loud funny, “Studio 666” meshes horror and rock and roll as well as most movies of this ilk usually do, digging its heels in to the whole trope of Satanism and demons affecting rock music. The band members for the most part play versions of themselves who are struggling to make the newest big hit at the pressure of their managers. Picking up the slack in the comedy and acting department, there’s Jeff Garlin who appears as their manager, Whitney Cummings who is charming as a snoopy neighbor who may or may not know what’s happening in their mansion.
Also, Will Forte also plays an obnoxious pizza delivery guy, while Jenna Ortega offers a brief, effective appearance. There is also a fun albeit odd appearance by Lionel Ritchie. It’s completely inexplicable and random, but again, I appreciated what they were trying. Grohl and his fellow band mates have an obvious love for horror, so the movie just never shies away from the sticky red stuff. There are so many great moments of grue, gore, splatter, dismemberment, vomit, and eye gougings, all for the gore hounds. Even if you can’t quite ignore the stilted performances from the band, there’s at least the gore.
I enjoyed the barbecue death, as well as the chainsaw attack mid-coitus. I don’t know if I’d recommend “Studio 666” as it’s a very niche horror film, more suited to Foo Fighters fanatics. But when all was said and done, it amounts to a solid comic horror splatterfest with its heart in the right place.