106 min | R | February 25, 2022 | Open Road Films
The Foo Fighters move into a haunted mansion to record their tenth album. Something in the house wants the record finished, and it does not care who has to die. Dave Grohl plays a possessed version of himself, which is funnier as a pitch than as a movie.
The Foo Fighters play themselves and decamp to an Encino mansion to record an album. The house has a history. People died here, and the place wants Dave Grohl to finish the music they started. The premise is a rock star indulging his horror-fan id and casting his actual band as the victims. The film knows it is a vanity project and tries to weaponize that self-awareness into camp, with mixed results.
Dave Grohl plays Dave Grohl as an affable goofball who curdles into a homicidal egomaniac, and he commits to the gore with real glee. He is the only performer the camera trusts to carry a scene. Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Pat Smear, Chris Shiflett, and Rami Jaffee play themselves as set decoration waiting to be picked off. They land a few drummer jokes and a few groans, but the script gives them nothing past their on-stage personas. Whitney Cummings shows up as Samantha, the leering neighbor, in a bit that exists to deliver one joke and a body.
BJ McDonnell directs with the eye of a longtime camera operator on horror sets, and the practical kills are the most considered thing here. The screenplay by Jeff Buhler and Rebecca Hughes, from Grohl’s story, treats plot as connective tissue between gags. The kills favor chainsaws, grinders, and arterial spray staged for maximum splatter, and the effects team clearly had the budget to do them wet and physical. The problem is rhythm. The film stalls between setpieces because the jokes run on band in-jokes and the scares never threaten anyone the audience has reason to fear for.
This is a band having a blast and assuming the fun is contagious. Sometimes it is. The gore is generous and the Grohl performance has more conviction than the material deserves. But the horror has no teeth and the comedy runs thin once the novelty of musicians dying onscreen wears off. It is a long inside joke with good effects, and you have to already love the band to stay in the room.