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.

I don't know if some misguided people were expecting to walk in to a polished, Hollywood big budget masterpiece, but that was certainly never the MO here. The trailers showed us that.

The acting sometimes verges on cringe-makingly awful, but the kills, thrills and gore are plentiful and, overall, the film is fun, even if it does sometimes meander aimlessly. You can tell they had fun making this.

Our beloved Foos do well with what they're given, but in terms of script, even if they're not given an awful lot, their sense of fun prevails.

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!

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.

Lots of laughs, lots of gore, lots of bad acting, bad editing and direction, but, despite all this, I had a lot of fun watching it.

Grohl is pretty good, the rest of the band, not so much.

To be picky, in a movie that is not meant to be taken too seriously, it is a bit too long and that is not how you wire a car, Pat!!