Extremely R-Rated Horror Masterpiece Starring Ultimate ’90s Band Is Now Streaming For Free

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 12 seconds ago

If you watch enough horror movies, you learn to dread one thing above all else: weird vanity projects from rock stars. Musicians just love the genre, and when some of them get enough money (or just get bored enough), they crank out some of the most forgettable movies on the planet. For example, the Glenn Danzig-directed film Verotika, a movie so bad that I hope the Geneva Convention eventually classifies it as a war crime. Plus, while he has his fans, Rob Zombie is one of the worst directors to grace the genre, and his Halloween movies feel like nothing more than big-budget fan films.

Because of this, I was very skeptical about Studio 666 (2022), a movie prominently featuring Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters. The story came from Grohl, and he and his band are playing fictionalized versions of themselves. Normally, such a vanity project would be an unmitigated disaster. However, the film is a strange brew that tastes weirdly smooth. Grohl is oddly charming as the lead, and his expressive face will make you laugh long before he opens his mouth. The whole thing is a horror comedy done well, and it’s currently streaming for free on Tubi. That means you don’t have to cut into your rock festival budget to jam out to Studio 666.

Rock and Soul

The premise of Studio 666 is that the Foo Fighters are having trouble coming up with songs for their next album. Under pressure from their very intense manager, the band ends up temporarily moving into a spooky old mansion, hoping the change in scenery will get their creative juices flowing. Unfortunately, the house is quite literally haunted, and it doesn’t take long before Dave Grohl gets possessed by a nasty demon. Soon, the band members start dying off, turning the rest of the film into a race against the one thing even scarier than writer’s block: flesh-eating monsters!

Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foo Fighters (including Rami Jaffee, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Pat Smear, and the late, great Taylor Hawkins) all play themselves, and they serve as the core cast of Studio 666. Going in, I thought this was a recipe for disaster, but I was quickly proven wrong. The breezy script provides each band member with a few laugh-out-loud moments, and the band’s chemistry helps to elevate even the clunkiest dialogue. Grohl, in particular, is a revelation, deftly transforming from lead singer to leading man in a relentlessly hilarious performance. It’s a horror comedy that’s funnier than it is scary, and most of the humor comes from Grohl’s charmingly sincere acting.

Who Needs Plot When You Have Vibes? 

As you might suspect, Studio 666 doesn’t have much of a plot to get in the way of the movie. The mansion the band moves into is really just an excuse to have a fun atmosphere for the kills, which are one of the film’s undisputed highlights. No two bandmates die in exactly the same way, and the exact manner of each death simply gets crazier over time. The onscreen gore is great, and none of the characters take the deaths too seriously. After a poor techie gets electrocuted, for example, they simply decide to dedicate the next album to him. This just adds to the off-kilter comedy, making these over-the-top kills that much funnier.

Like many horror films before it, Studio 666 was misunderstood by professional reviewers. It currently has a 56 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics complaining that it doesn’t get the horror/comedy balance right and that you have to be a major Foo Fighters fan to enjoy it. However, average moviegoers seriously disagreed with this assessment, which is why the movie has a much higher audience score of 80 percent. Incidentally, audiences mostly agreed that the Foo Fighters make for hilarious horror stars and that Studio 666 delivered the exact amount of gore and gut-busting laughs they were hoping for.

A Devil Of A Good Time

Unfortunately, this musician horror masterpiece has largely been overlooked by both fans of the band and fans of the genre. While the movie had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it theatrical release, it was always intended as more of a direct-to-video release. It made little fanfare when it came out in 2022, and it didn’t take long for this movie to end up on streaming. While it was lost in the noise for a while (have you ever really looked at the sheer number of horror movies that come out each year?), the movie developed a cult following and established itself as one of the most crowdpleasing horror films of the last decade.

Been jamming out to the Foo Fighters since the ‘90s? Looking for a genuinely scary movie that can still make you laugh? Or maybe you just want to see if Dave Grohl can carry a movie as easily as he can carry a tune? No matter the reason, Studio 666 is a bonkers horror/comedy that’s worth watching, ideally with a beer in each hand and your best friends by your side. You can stream it completely for free, meaning that you don’t have to pay a thing to torment your friends with the stupidest possible bit: pointing at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio and saying “there goes my hero” whenever Grohl is onscreen.

Will they sacrifice you to a demon? Maybe. But if this movie teaches us anything, it’s that really great creatives suffer because of their art!