For anyone who found the band tensions that reverberate in 鈥淭he Beatles: Get Back鈥� too tame, the Foo Fighters have made a movie in which arguments over recording an album lead to a trail of dead bodies - and, no, this isn't Yoko's fault, either.
鈥淪tudio 666,鈥� a horror-comedy starring the six members of the Foo Fighters as themselves, is one of the sillier concepts to reach the big screen in a while. That it even exists is part of the joke - maybe even the whole joke. While Dave Grohl and company were making their 10th album at a big, old house in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, they hit on the idea of a bloodier riff on 鈥淭his Is Spinal Tap鈥� that would parody not just themselves but any band that's ever sequestered themselves in a colorful locale said to have good sound.
鈥淟ike Zeppelin, when Zeppelin went to the castle,鈥� Grohl urges his bandmates in the film.
鈥淪tudio 666,鈥� which opens in theaters Friday, was conceived as a lark, and that's exactly how it comes off. It's a goof, and there's something to be said for watching Grohl and the gang having so much fun. In the version I saw, you can even catch them laughing once or twice. The charm of that can only go so far, of course. This is essentially a decent 鈥淪NL鈥� sketch stretched to nearly two hours.
But the Foo Fighters have in their three decades proved, if nothing else, the boundless possibilities of positivity and being regular, self-deprecating guys. Letting the good times roll has made the Foo Fighters - despite being decades removed from their biggest hits - one of rock's biggest acts, hall of fame inductees and, now, movie stars. If anything, 鈥淪tudio 666鈥� is a testament to how bloody likable they are.
Bad vibes are the enemy in 鈥淪tudio 666鈥� - that, and a demonic force that dwells beneath the house and seizes Grohl, turning his monomaniacal desire for an 鈥渆pic鈥� album into a fevered, murderous obsession. Referencing Rush, he wants it to be 鈥�2112 times 2112.鈥� He claims to discover a new note: L Sharp. A heavy metal thrasher stretches past 40 minutes in length.
Members of the band - Taylor Hawkins, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee, Chris Shiflett, Nate Mendel - are peeled away one by one, and director B.J. McDonnell makes sure any death is comically extreme. A few friends make cameos - Lionel Richie, Whitney Cummings and Will Forte as a delivery guy with a demo tape who tells the group they're 鈥渓ike my second favorite band after Coldplay.鈥�
It's rare for any musical act to make a movie like this today - documentaries seem the preferred format these days - and rarer still for it to be a band that's been around as long as the Foo Fighters have. But hopefully it starts a new trend among '90s acts. Maybe a hairbrained heist movie with Pavement or a science-fiction thriller with Radiohead?
鈥淪tudio 666鈥� an Open Road release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for strong bloody violence and gore, pervasive language, and sexual content. Running time: 108 minutes. Two stars out of four.
