MOVIE REVIEW: Kymm Zuckert on the Foo Fighter's STUDIO 666 (2022, BJ McDonnell, USA)
“This is not just a creepy rock and roll house…”
When I saw the trailer for Studio 666 I immediately wanted to see it, I thought it looked like a lot of fun. And do you know what? I was totally right, it is a lot of fun!
It’s time for the Foo Fighters to make their tenth album, so they move into a house where, in the ‘90s, another band recorded an album that they didn’t finish, due to “creative differences.” That’s what the Foos are told, though we see in the first scene that said differences were that the band members wanted to be alive, and the lead singer wanted them dead.
So, they move in, and Dave Grohl (excellently cast in the role of Dave Grohl) is immediately taken by the “overwhelming sense of death” and the amazing sound that the drums make when they are in the exact right spot in the living room, but he is creatively blocked and cannot think of any new songs.
Then he goes to the basement, where he sees some really gross stuff, and also demons, and finds the tape that the band from years before had been working on, and then he is all fired up to make some music, and nothing is going to stop him, certainly not his band members.
This a movie where a band of musicians who are not actors play themselves, like a much more intense version of the Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, where each band member sort of gets their own lane to play in, and maybe they aren’t award-worthy performances, but they are charming and funny and extremely likable. It reminded me very much of The Chris Isaak Show, where his band members played his band members (plus one ringer actor for plots that required more than the band members had to offer), and they just were adorable. Only with way less blood than Studio 666.
Dave has to do the most acting, being possessed by demons and so forth, while also playing sweet Dave who we have all seen being awesome on social media, and he does an excellent job. This is not damning with faint praise, not everyone can play themselves believably. I mean, I wouldn’t cast him as Hamlet or Willy Loman or Uncle Vanya anytime soon, but I think he has the chops to play someone not exactly like Dave Grohl.
The movie is, I must admit, about twenty minutes too long, and not every single thing in it works, but I particularly enjoyed some of the throwaway lines, like “Pearl Jam high five, Jeremy has spoken,” “You’re my second favourite band, after Coldplay,” and, as two band members are trying to escape from the person who they know isn’t really Dave anymore, “Wait, we gave the van keys to shitty Dave!”
There are some real actors in the movie, too, Jeff Garlin as their manager, Whitney Cummings as the groupie next door, and Leslie Grossman as the real estate agent, and they help prop up the band and make it not just them rowing the movie to shore all on their own.
If you have a strong stomach for gore, and aren’t expecting Citizen Kane II, this is a fun way to spend an hour and 40 minutes.
Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog