Studio 666

I found out this morning that Taylor Hawkins passed away yesterday, the same day that I watched this film, so I wanted to open this review with a quick "rest in peace". I'm not sure how to segue from that, so I suppose I'll just start a new paragraph.

The greatest strength of 'Studio 666 (2022)' is arguably also its greatest weakness: the Foo Fighters and their wonderfully wonky acting. If there's any joy to be found here, it's purely because of the focal band and how much fun each member seems to be having. In fact, their energy is actually rather infectious and it makes for a rather sweet retrospective experience. In the moment, though, the movie isn't anywhere near as fun as it ought to be. It's goofy, gory and suitably self-aware, but it's also tonally inconsistent and far too long (it has about three different endings and ultimately settles on what's easily the worst one). It isn't particularly funny and it isn't particularly scary, either. It's a bit of a slog, to be honest. Pat Smear's almost permanent grin sort of encapsulates the picture's primary problem: it's always just one small step away from feeling fully credible. Every time it almost convinces you that it's a 'real' movie and you start to feel yourself getting lost in its B-movie pastiche, an unintentionally hokey or otherwise uncanny element will rear its head and set things right back to square one. Despite all this, it's never offensively bad. It's actually oddly endearing, even though it's undeniably subpar. It's never boring and its practical effects are surprisingly excellent. It has a couple of enjoyable moments, too. It's good enough for what it is, but not much more. 5/10.

You can tell the Foos love a good laugh. This wasn't so much a horror movie but instead was a series of inside jokes and double entendre. I found myself laughing at the jokes and then ultimately at the silliness. Thanks Dave and the rest of the guys!

By watching the trailer you know what's on offer, so let's not get too serious about this.

It's clearly a fun time with the Foos, nothing else.

The directing and cinematography was mediocre at its best, but I didn't watch this (and enjoy it) because I wanted to watch a cinematic masterpiece, I wanted to watch Dave Grohl and the gang being silly, and damn right I've got a lot of that!

As a surprising plus, I was quite impressed by the super gory deaths, Tom Savini style, fans of his B-Class movies will love this, some Mortal Kombat fatality stuff here!

I thank for the show and the fun, Dave always delivers!

Now I've got to go watch interviews and anecdotes about the making of, which I'm sure will be fun too!

I knew I would like this movie from the start. Dave Grohl is a magical Rock geek and this movie extends that. I'm a little surprise Dave Grohl can't act cause I seen him in other movies but I am not shocked that the rest of the Foo Fighters looked stiff on camera, but the thing about the movie is even if your love of the Foo Fighters is just in passing, you'll love this movie cause the Foo Fighters are in it.

I mean watching Pat Smear just recite lines was so entertaining. No one else could have pulled that off, no other band could have pulled off being such god awful actors in a two hour film and hold my interest, but they were able to do that, and all with only little pieces of a new incremental they played over and over again as part of the plot.

The idea apparently was something the Foo Fighters just thought would be cool for the longest time and decided just to do it. As themselves, the Foo Fighters set out to make their 10th album different by recording in a mansion that is haunted. I personally have herd the myths of rock bands recording albums in haunted houses. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are on record stating they felt a ghostly presence in the house they recorded Blood Sugar Sex Magik in (Drummer Chad Smith even moved out because of it).

Typical of Dave Grohl, who seems to love Rock and Roll lore, decides to poke fun of the whole thing with his own horror parody.

It is a movie for all Rock fans and all Foo Fighter fans and well worth seeing.

Came into it expecting exactly what it was - a goofy B-movie with plenty of comical gore, horror tropes, and amusing jokes made at the expense of each band mate. I got all of these, however these moments were far too sporadically spaced throughout the movie, with idle chit-chatting that took the plot nowhere and scenes of the band rehearsing and chilling out, eating etc that were much too leisurely employed and dragged out for what felt like eternities at times.

It's a shame because there were enough quality moments in this to make it a great 70-80 minute movie, but space these out over the course of nearly 2 hours and it's a totally different prospect. The latter part of the film contained at least 3 places where the movie could have ended satisfactorily, only for another rather pointless event or 'twist' to take place to stretch it out another ten minutes.

Overall a slightly missed opportunity, as with tighter editing it could have been a cult classic.