Review: 'Studio 666,' a horror comedy starring the Foo Fighters, is slapdash but still fun

I can’t say “Studio 666” is a good movie — at times, it reaches Troma-esque levels of cheapness and incompetence — but it’s a fun movie, as over-the-top horror comedies go.

Conceived by Foo Fighters guitarist/drummer/frontman Dave Grohl, the story starts with the Foo Fighters contemplating how they’re going to record their 10th album, which their record-company boss, Shill (Jeff Garlin), desperately needs to release to pay off the label’s debts. Grohl wants to record somewhere unique, and Shill’s friend in real estate, Barb (Leslie Grossman), knows just the place: An isolated mansion in Encino.

What Barb doesn’t mention — and Dave and the band find out too late — is that the last band to record in this house, Dream Widow, was horrifically murdered there. The band doesn’t get the hint when one of their techs is gruesomely electrocuted when plugging in the sound board, the first of many comically gory set-ups that director BJ McDonnell (“Hatchet III”) and writers Jeff Buhler (who wrote the “Pet Sematary” remake) and Rebecca Hughes serve up.

There are a few celebrity cameos, like Whitney Cummings as an oversexed Encino neighbor and Will Forte as a food-delivery driver trying to impress the Foos — and, as a real sign of the filmmakers’ respect for this genre, an out-of-left-field appearance by the legendary director John Carpenter (“Halloween,” “The Thing,” “Escape from New York,” “Big Trouble in Little China”) as a sound engineer.

But most of the humor comes from watching Grohl and bandmates Taylor Hawkins, Rami Jaffee, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear try their hand at acting, with hilariously woeful results. They know it’s all a goof, like a “Scooby-Doo” episode with buckets of fake blood, and that self-deprecation is charming enough to let the movie skate by.

——

‘Studio 666’

★★★

Opens Friday, February 25, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, pervasive language, and sexual content. Running time: 104 minutes.