Campy “Studio 666” blends music, mayhem and fun Making music to determine the fate of the world

Dave Grohl practically dominates the music side of the entertainment world, so naturally, he’s branching out into making movies, and bringing his best friends with him.

The Foo Fighters are at a creative crossroads: what to do for their milestone tenth album. In the midst of disagreements and discussions about what to record and where, the manager floats the idea of the perfect place to record, and arranges to have the empty house shown to the band. The house, in Encino, has a rock & roll history, but something darker lurks nearby.

After something inexplicable subconsciously calls to Dave, and he convinces the band that they have to move in for a few weeks, to write and record the album. The guys agree to live in the house, they have their instruments and recording gear brought in and set up… and evil shenanigans ensue.

Dave suffers from a bout of music writer’s block, and during one of his recent fits of insomnia, he wanders the lower levels of the house, finding a hidden room, a flayed open raccoon whose blood is oozing into a drain, and a long unused reel to reel tape deck. He is reinvigorated by the music he hears on the tape, but the song is incomplete. While Dave is angrily trying to find the rest of the song, what he has already played has opened a doorway, and Dave becomes an unwitting vessel for evil.

Dave himself becomes the hand of more evil shenanigans, and both the music and the blood flow freely through the rest of the film, and the mystery about why them and why now is ultimately revealed.

I believe fans of horror-comedy will enjoy this romp, doubly so if they are fans of hard rock. I am usually predisposed to avoid comedy, and that usually means horror-comedy mashups have a point against them before I start watching, so if they win me over that means they’ve done a really good job with the story.

Of course, the sound and the cinematography are top notch. The way some of the “impending doom” scenes are shot enhances the sense of dread horror movie audiences enjoy, as with the cathartic releases from the quick yet over the top deaths we all see coming.

The one nitpick I have is the pacing; some scenes seem drawn out far longer than necessary, and for me, that affects the anticipatory build up of tension between death scenes. It seems as if some filmmakers try to head off the predictability that maintaining faster (more consistent) pacing, but in this instance, for me, it threw things off to where I became impatient during some of the interlude scenes.

But the music more than made up for that.

Three and a half out of five stars

In STUDIO 666, the legendary rock band Foo Fighters move into an Encino mansion steeped in grisly rock and 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.

Starring Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee, Whitney Cummings, Will Forte, Jenna Ortega, Leslie Grossman and Jeff Garlin
Story by Dave Grohl
Screenplay by Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes
Directed by BJ McDonnell

Web: studio666movie.com
Twitter: @Studio666Movie