Studio 666 || Full Review

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Genre:  Comedy, Horror, Musical
Directed by:  BJ McDonnell
Screenplay by:  Jeff Buhler, Rebecca Hughes  ||  Story by:  Dave Grohl
Starring:  Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee, Whitney Cummings, Leslie Grossman, Will Forte, Jenna Ortega, Jeff Garlin
Music by:  Foo Fighters, John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, Roy Mayorga  ||  Cinematography by:  Michael Dallatorre, Eric Leach
RottenTomatoes - 58% from Critics, 81% from Audiences  ||  IMDB Average 6.1 out of 10  ||  Letterboxd Average 3.0 out of 5

What's It About?

After experiencing a creative block, the Foo Fighters move into an abandoned and remote mansion in Encino, California to focus on their much anticipated tenth album. When lead singer Dave Grohl begins to start act strangely, the rest of the band will be forced to look into mansion's dark and sinister history if they hope to save their friend - and themselves!



Full Thoughts

As a longtime fan of the band, the Foo Fighters - especially famed front-man Dave Grohl - seemed like perfect candidates for making the jump into their own feature-length movie. There's not an actor amongst the band members, but their personalities have been on display for near thirty years at this point through their ever evolving catalogue of creative and cheeky music videos. If they can convey such a unique and vibrant personality with the short time constraints of a music video - imagine what the band could do against the larger canvas of a feature-length movie?

Frustratingly, that potential is squandered, with Studio 666 saddling each member with unlikable, arch character tropes that offer little more than one-note reflections on the typical Hollywood takes on "rock stars". Love of sex, drugs, and self? All covered. This seems to make more sense when considering Rebecca Hughes' previous work (one of Studio 666's two screenwriters) consists primarily of sitcom work (episodes of Cracking Up and Grounded for Life). So it's no surprise that the characters in Studio 666 are just as thinly written as sitcom characters - only these simplistic arcs don't resolve in 21 minutes (sans commercial breaks)...they're drawn out for nearly 1 hour and 50 minutes. There is no cleverness to these characters often written in such a ham-fisted manner that belies any nuance. Case in point: Jeff Garlin's character, an antagonistic record executive, is named Jeremy Shill - just in case you might not get the point.

Similar criticisms can be had with Studio 666's thoroughly uninventive narrative - loosely inspired by movies like The Exorcist and Evil Dead, as well as real-life historical connections between rock-and-roll and the occult, such as the infamous Aleister Crowley. The latter makes for a great jumping-off point for a movie - one that thematically aligns with the Foo Fighter's known penchant for making fun of themselves - but it winds up being little more than set dressing with no real commentary backing Studio 666's hollow, self-reflective satire.

Okay. The characters and narrative are generic and lacking, so what? This is a horror/comedy starring the Foo Fighters after all - if the horror or comedy are strong enough, Studio 666 could still wind up being an entertaining time at the movies. Sadly, that isn't the case.




Before beginning, I'd like to acknowledge that comedy is subjective - what works for some, won't work for all. That said, the comedy bits in Studio 666 fall squarely into two categories - the first are self-referential jokes about the Foo Fighters and meta jokes about the larger music industry. Though there's nothing too clever to these meta gags, I found they worked much better than the second, more prevalent, category of jokes - a collection of the most sophomoric dick and blowjob jokes. There's a joke early on that will be a decent litmus test for your tolerance going forward - a joke involving guitarist Chris Shiflett sleeping with keyboardist Rami Jaffee's grandmother - an easy setup that is handled in such a bizarre and off-putting way. And it's not just a difference of taste, as I didn't necessarily find anything offensive here - just thoroughly lame. The jokes are trying so hard to emulate this late 90s/early 00s sensibility found within the American Pie and National Lampoon's Van Wilder movies - but two decades later, that same humor has lost all of its bite...it's no longer surprising or edgy.

Again, comedy is subjective, so I'll just leave it with this last thought: outside of a recurring Pearl Jam joke and a stellar Lionel Ritchie gag, the bottom-of-the-barrel, frat-boy humor in Studio 666 did absolutely nothing for me.

The horror elements are maybe the best part of Studio 666, but even then they're not always the most successful. Director BJ McDonnell (Hatchet III and several Slayer music videos) brings in some interesting and striking visuals (notably the dark entities with the bright, glowing red facial features) and does create some tense moments surrounding a demonic song's growing hold over Grohl. However, be it due to limited budget or amateurish editing, the detailed practical effects are often over lit and held within shots for entirely too long - leaving many of the kills feeling cheaply conceived. Even gorehounds will be sorely disappointed by the infrequent pace at which Studio 666 doles out its admittedly grizzly kills. With the majority of these kills being held until the third act (and then rushed through without much tension or build up), Studio 666 is left with a plodding second act that's forced to connect narrative pieces which the audience has long figured out by that point due to the completely absence of subtlety in any facet of the filmmaking.

Though I always embrace any creative type stepping outside of their comfort zone and trying something new, and though I applaud the Foo Fighters for doing what even Grohl claims was “stupid enough for no other band to do," Studio 666 is an undeniably messy experience which I didn't find that enjoyable. Studio 666 is a movie whose shortcomings will only further limit the already niche audience who will be able to appreciate what it has to offer, which is admittedly not much. The only saving grace of Studio 666 is the inherent likability of the Foo Fighters in what would otherwise be an extremely unpleasant movie-going experience without them.

TL;DR Thoughts 

"Studio 666 wastes the innate likability of the Foo Fighters on an uninspired horror/comedy weighed down by its edgy, try-hard humor, insultingly simplistic storytelling, and overinflated runtime."

Standout Scene

Lionel Ritchie. That's all I will say.

Standout Performance

Dave Grohl is suitably hammy and fun as an exaggerated version of himself - but it is also pretty much exactly what we would expect from Dave Grohl in this type of performance. The standout for me is Pat Smear, the platinum haired rhythm guitarist, who does something in Studio 666 that transcends "performance". I'm not sure if he's "good" or "bad" or what - I just know that Smear's performance here would feel right at home in Tommy Wiseau's The Room and I absolutely loved every bit of the weirdness he brought.



Behind-the-Scenes Trivia

  • An easter egg of a Buck Rogers raygun can be seen when Dave Grohl is exploring the cellar - this is the same one used on the Foo Fighter's first album cover.
  • Dave Grohl is rumored to have created a full album for the band Dream Widow (seen briefly at the beginning of Studio 666), with the first single - "The March of the Insane" - available now.
  • Click to Reveal Light Spoiler

Pairs Well With...


Film-FTW Rating  ||  3 Stars
"Bad / Thoroughly Flawed"


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