Studio 666

Now coming from you from the department of “things you didn’t know you needed”, the Foo Fighters have neatly side-stepped the influx of musical biopics in recent years with an unabashedly campy, B-movie horror film. In a way, it was always in them: one need only glance at the music video for their best-known hit, 1997’s “Everlong”, to find a strong homage to the Evil Dead movies.

The first few moments of the trailer set up the premise of the band seeking a new recording location in a creepy, abandoned house (what could go wrong?). The Foos’ song “Holding Poison” from their latest record provides serviceable energy at the outset. The first of multiple synch points occurs at 0:14, just as the song transitions to a slower, syncopated guitar section. It synchs up again at 0:18, and even more so at 0:21, with Dave Grohl’s clap, with the soundtrack cutting out. This clap also seems to initiate a subliminal, split-second horror image. He claps a second time at 0:25—this time without the song—as it to confirm it. What’s interesting here is the way this whole sequence plays with our expectations of diegesis in sound. It moves the soundtrack from something incidental, to something that the characters on-screen recognize and play with, with some level of consciousness—not unlike the unspoken audiovisual rules that govern a musical.

A relatively generic guitar and jamming sequence then leads to another stop of the soundtrack at 0:41, this time in service of a musical punchline: Grohl demonstrates what he believes is an original idea to his bandmates, but the drummer, Taylor Hawkins, points out that it’s just “Everlong”—a pointed self-jab for a group that’s gone on near the 30-year mark. It then swiftly moves into horror-movie-trope territory, with disturbing synths, creeping pizzicato strings, and pseudo-jump scares. The second half of the trailer focuses largely on Dave becoming possessed and turning on his bandmates. The gruesome festivities are set to a heavy guitar track, quite possibly from their tenth album release, of which this film is a companion to.

We’ve commented before on how sometimes films and film trailers can be a promotional vehicle for new music releases—and arguably, this movie is proof positive of that idea. While not explicitly a preview of the new record, it does offer music that hints at an upcoming record. If successful, it would be interesting to see if other musical acts might try anything similar.

Studio 666 arrives in theatres February 24th.

— Curtis Perry