Studio 666 (2022) * * *

Directed by:  B.J. McDonnell

Starring:  Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee, Jeff Garlin, Whitney Cummings, Will Forte

I'm about to write the craziest review I've ever typed on this blog.   Stick with me.   Studio 666 stars The Foo Fighters as themselves and no one would mistake them for Laurence Olivier.   They rent a house which will serve as a studio for their latest album.   Leader Dave Grohl loves the acoustics, but there is something weird about this place.   We see in the prologue that someone murdered a whole bunch of people there long ago.  Things go bump in the night even before Dave travels to the basement and dusts off an unfinished recording of a song recorded there thirty years prior.   Once Dave listens to the song, he becomes possessed by the ghost of the guy who recorded the song and then proceeded to off the rest of his band before committing suicide.

Dave transforms from being a pretty nice guy to a guy who eats raw meat and bullies his band mates into performing a 45-minute instrumental.   Those who push back are killed by Dave and the number of band members who can help him finish the recording naturally dwindles.   Unfortunate outsiders such as a neighbor (Cummings) and a worshipful pizza delivery man (Forte) become Dave's victims soon enough.   

Studio 666 reminds me of an 80's horror schlock film with questionable production values and actors who can't act very well.   But part of why Studio 666 generates charm is how unpolished it is.   It contains a manic energy which would've been muted if the filmmakers had tried to make Studio 666 look more like a Hollywood film and less like an independent project.   I found myself about halfway through watching the movie with a silly grin on my face, especially when Dave Grohl morphs into a demon-possessed killer.  Grohl has a future in the movies and doesn't necessarily have to play himself.   He has this crazy glint in his eye which tells us he's flat out having a ball.   The rest of the Foo Fighters follow suit and what follows is an inexplicably gory good time.  Even when victims are cut in half from under a bed with a chainsaw.