WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Studio 666, currently out in theaters.
The rock-n-roll horror-comedy film Studio 666 channels plenty of references to classic horror cinema, right down to a cameo appearance by influential horror filmmaker John Carpenter. One major point of inspiration for Studio 666 is the Sam Raimi horror franchise The Evil Dead, which similarly saw its main character possessed by demonic forces and menacing their closest friends. However, Studio 666 provides its own twist on a major hallmark from the Evil Dead trilogy, the Necronomicon, but its version of the unholy tome trope offers its characters salvation rather than hellish damnation.
Studio 666 has Foo Fighters' frontman Dave Grohl lead the band to record their next studio album in a home in Encino, obsessed with creating the ultimate rock song. The house is the site of a gruesome set of murders to a band known as Dream Widow, with the murders revealed to be part of a ritual sacrifice to supernaturally enhance their music by channeling the powers of Hell. Grohl is possessed by the evil spirit of Dream Widow's frontman at the ritual site in a hidden part of the mansion after listening to one of Dream Widow's tracks backward, with Dream Widow's demonic connection later revealed to be through the discovery of a cursed book of spells.
This premise is reminiscent of The Evil Dead, with a group of friends vacationing at a remote cabin in the woods only to discover the Necronomicon, the Sumerian Book of the Dead. The sinister potential of the Necronomicon is awakened when recordings of ancient incantations are played, causing the woods around the cabin to become demonically possessed, with the demons targeting the friends and causing them to turn against each other. When the group leader Ash Williams flings the Necronomicon into a fire to destroy it, the spell is seemingly broken. Evil Dead II reveals that the Necronomicon has a spell capable of undoing the magic while Army of Darkness presents the Necronomicon as a tome that can either unleash evil or purge it from the countryside.
Studio 666's cursed book provides the Foo Fighters with the only discernible means in restoring Grohl to his senses, with surviving bandmates Pat Smear and Nate Mendel tracking down the book and using a spell within to purge the evil spirit from their friend's body. The resulting incantation appears to be successful, but a plot twist at the end of the film reveals that Grohl is still possessed by the demonic spirits that led him to murder his friends, suggesting there may not be a cure for the sole surviving Foo Fighter and that the spells in the cursed book may not be as powerful as the band is led to believe.
Both Evil Dead and Studio 666 suggest that a cursed book can doom or save anyone that comes across it, with the Evil Dead tome presented as being much more consciously malevolent while Studio 666's book has a whole set of spells that nearly save Grohl from the satanic worshippers targeting the band through Dream Widow's legacy. There is more than a small, self-aware wink from Studio 666 to the well-worn horror trope popularized by the Evil Dead, but Studio 666 brings its rock-n-roll swagger to sinister backmasking rather evoking ancient Sumerian spells to unleash its body-snatching evil.
To see a new take on Evil Dead's Necronomicon, Studio 666 is in theaters now.