Studio 666 star Dave Grohl originally thought making a horror film was 'a f---ing stupid idea'

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl had a strong reaction when he was initially pitched the idea of his band starring in a horror film. “Three years ago, a friend of mine texted me and said, ‘I just came out of a meeting with these people who want to make a horror film with the Foo Fighters,'” Grohl recalls. “I said that’s a f—ing terrible idea. Why would we ever do something so ridiculous?”

Cut to 2022 and Grohl is chatting over Zoom to EW about Studio 666 (out Feb, 25), a horror film that does indeed star the ex-Nirvana drummer as well as his bandmates Taylor Hawkins, Pat Smear, Rami Jaffee, Chris Shiflett, and Nate Mendel. So what changed Grohl’s mind? Turns out, the musician was struck by some horror-spiration while laying down tracks for the band’s 2021 album Medicine at Midnight at a house in Encino.

“We had moved into this house to record Medicine at Midnight,” he says. “I thought, wait a second, we already have the house; once we’re done with the record, let’s take a couple of weeks off, and then we’ll just shoot some low-budget run-and gun slasher thing. It’ll come out with the record, and it’ll be fun. Well, it then snowballed into a full-length feature film. As it progressed, I kept looking at everyone in the band, saying, ‘Oh my God, we’re making a movie.’ Like, that’s not something we ever expected to do.”

Directed by BJ McDonnell (Hatchet III), and written by Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes, the film finds Grohl becoming possessed by supernatural forces while the band is attempting to record an album.

“Imagine! A rock band who’s tired of using all of those recording studios that all of your favorite records have been made in decide to find somewhere different,” says Grohl. “Enter: Creepy old house, which they have no idea is haunted. They begin to record, people start getting killed, but you don’t know who is doing the killing, until you discover that it’s the singer of the band, who’s possessed by the sprit of the house.”

The cast of Studio 666 also includes Will Forte, Whitney Cummings, and Scream star Jenna Ortega, while the film’s gruesome effects were masterminded by make-up designer Tony Gardner, whose many credits include Zombieland, several entries in the Chucky franchise, and last year’s Old.

“Four, five years ago, we made a video for a song called ‘Run,’ and the premise of that video was that we were senior citizens,” says Grohl. “We needed this prosthetic make-up to make us look old, so we called Tony Gardner, who is an old-school Hollywood special effects legend. Tony is such a gentle and kind, wonderful dude, who comes up with the most nightmarish, insane ideas of how to kill people. So, when we were writing the script, we made a list of the most ridiculous, inventive, creative, and hilarious ways to kill each person. We just walked around the house with a notepad and said, ‘Oh, you know what you could do? Chainsaw Rami in half. He’s having sex with Whitney Cummings, and just f—ing splay him.’ Or, ‘You know what you should do? Decapitate Taylor with a cymbal, just throw it right into this mouth.’ So, that was really fun.”

Grohl had more fun playing the villain of the piece. “It feels good to put on some fangs, some contact lenses, and become a f—ing demon,” he says. “You know, you spend most of your time trying to be the nicest, kindest person you could possibly be, until someone puts that s— on your face [and] you suddenly have license to be possessed by the f—ing devil. It was really cool.”