Since the release of The Downward Spiral in March of 1994, Nine Inch Nails had become one of the most well known acts of the 1990s and its leader Trent Reznor was hailed as a star. By late 1997, The Downward Spiral had already become an essential album for the 1990s already selling a few million copies worldwide and its single for Closer was an MTV favorite. Trent Reznor had also found success as a producer doing soundtracks for Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers and David Lynch’s Lost Highway and most recently, producing Marilyn Manson’s 1996 breakthrough release Antichrist Superstar. In November of 1997, Trent Reznor decided to end The Downward Spiral era by releasing a double-video package that chronicled not only the band’s video history but also a documentary film on their 1994 to 1996 Self Destruct world tour titled Closure.

Closure is not only a look back at NIN through their videos and the Self Destruct world tour but an end of a chapter as Trent Reznor moves on to another chapter in the NIN saga. Each video is a look at the band’s history from its music videos to its Self Destruct tour documentary. While most video compilations or documentary films by artists have a slick feel, NIN goes for a more raw and artistic approach to their project and it sets itself apart from many of the video compilations and films from its rock and pop contemporaries. Overall, Closure is a defining end to Trent Reznor’s most successful period in the history of NIN.

The first video titled Self Destruct is the documentary film by Jeff Richter and Jonathan Rachman on the band’s 1994 to 1996 world tour. Shot mainly by home video cameras, Richter and Rachman chronicles the band’s tour that are not only filled with the typical rock n’ roll debauchery of booze, destruction, and sex but concert footage showing the power of NIN as a live band. The film also goes through the antics of various NIN members most notably guitarist Robin Finck who often wears makeup and shaves his head in weird ways during their shows. The film also shows fans talking to the camera about NIN saying “they’re bad*ss and I want to lick Trent when he gets offstage”.

The film features performances of NIN classics like Wish, Terrible Lie, Down In It, The Only Time, Piggy, March Of The Pigs, Something I Can Never Have, and other hits. In the performance of Down In It, the show clips of various shows performing the song where Trent would be all over his band mates and push bassist/guitarist/keyboardist Danny Lohner into the crowd where he was crowd surfing during the performance. There’s also brief performance clips of NIN classics that shows Trent Reznor dropkicking a keyboard or throwing a keyboard at the drum stand. Another brief moment was when Trent Reznor in an interview with MTV for the 1994 year-end special where he talked about the time he threw his microphone stand at drummer Chris Vrenna during a show where Vrenna got a huge cut in his head yet he still played the show with his head bleeding heavily and cuts in with footage of Vrenna getting bandaged up by a doctor. Injuries are shown heavily in the documentary as there are cuts and scabs on Reznor’s legs and a scene where Robin Finck comes in with his middle finger bandaged up after a show where he slammed the guitar against the ground of the stage and he almost cut off the end of his finger which led NIN to cancel a show.

There’s also footage of the band going to supermarkets and getting stuff while being on the road, doing rehearsals, and having meetings with executives with his manager John Malm Jr. There’s also a scene of Trent playing with his dog Maise (who actually died on the tour in late ’94 which forced NIN to cancel a few shows) and chatting up with pals like El Duce of the Mentors and Jim Rose of the Jim Rose Circus who was opening for NIN. The scenes with the Jim Rose Circus that included a guy with scorpions on him, a dude who is double-jointed, and Mr. Lifto who lifts things with his various body parts including a huge cylinder block with his nipples. Ouch! Another moment of rock n’ roll debauchery was when NIN, Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins, and other people were throwing things at the exit sign where Trent was the one who knocked it down at the end of the contest.

Aside from scenes of Trent doing business for his Nothing label, there’s a scene of Trent and NIN keyboardist Charlie Clouser working on the soundtrack to Natural Born Killers while Trent worked on the piano tracks for the extended version of Something I Can Never Have. There’s also mention of the infamous performance in Woodstock ’94 where NIN received attention for their mud-drenched performance that helmed them into the media spotlight and there’s a hilarious scene where NIN is posing a picture with the guy who used to do those 1-800-Collect commercials where he called Danny “p*ssy boy”.

Aside from the 1-800 guy cameo, there’s appearances from Marilyn Manson who was opening for NIN during their tour that included a hilarious scene of Manson saying, “Hangover, I did too many drugs and alcohol and I have a hangover”. Rock legend Lou Reed makes an appearance where he shares a drink with Trent who praises for playing rock the smart way. The most notable appearance comes from David Bowie during their tour in late ’95 where the two discussed on how to get their performances to come together including Bowie’s set list with NIN. Bowie also shares jokes with the band including a reference to maligned rapper Vanilla Ice who sampled the bass line to his hit with Queen Under Pressure where Bowie says “If he’s doing ‘Under Pressure’, then why is Bowie doing Vanilla Ice covers?” and he also makes fun of Danny for his good looks because he looks like Brad Pitt which embarrassed the guy. The highlight of the film is a duet between Bowie and Reznor for the song Hurt where it’s given a more art-rock musical structure of melodic guitars from Reeves Gabrels and Carlos Alomar including an abstract piano track from Mike Garson that does outshine the original track on some levels.

While the documentary film contains some hilarious highlights and an in-depth look into NIN, the video collection is a look through NIN in the world of music videos. The video collection spanning through the band’s two full-length album and an EP from 1989 through 1997 is a look into the approach NIN took to music videos. Unfortunately, the NIN video collection is incomplete because the collection didn’t feature the entire video for Sin that never made it to MTV nor any other music video channel due to its graphic content and the Burn video from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack directed by Trent Reznor and Hank Corwin doesn’t appear in the video collection even though it’s one of the best videos NIN put out. Despite those things, the NIN video collection is definitely a worthy look into the music videos that NIN have put out from 1989 to 1997.

The video collection starts off and in between videos is a beautiful but disturbing footage of a dirty, old room with ferrets, dead animals, and stock footage from experimental science films to rare Thomas Edison experimental films with NIN samples as background music. The first three videos from the Pretty Hate Machine era are all shot by noted underground video makers who were responsible for the videos by established industrial leaders like Skinny Puppy and Ministry. First is Head Like A Hole that features stock footage of African tribes, a face mask of Trent Reznor spinning around, and the band playing inside a circular stage with noted industrial producer J.G. Thirlwell playing drums with Chris Vrenna while Trent and future Filter leader Richard Patrick sing the song and in the near-end, Trent is hung by his feet dangling upside down while he performed. The second video is part of the controversial Sin video that featured genital piercing, topless women, gay men smearing blood on themselves along with smoking dope and wearing sex toys, and finally there’s Trent Reznor in this weird contraption where he would go upside down or side ways while he’s being spun by a topless woman holding a flashlight.

Then there’s the infamous Down In It video that featured Trent Reznor running around in the streets of Chicago climbing up ladders and running up on hills as he’s being chased by his band mates Vrenna and Patrick and in the end, Reznor is found dead covered in cornstarch that didn’t make it in the final cut by MTV because it was rumored to have a suicide theme and the video was then edited. The video became infamous when a broken camera used during the making was found by a farmer who then turned in the footage to the FBI where there were rumors that Trent Reznor had died until Reznor had to fly to Chicago in order to show proof that he was alive.

The next series of videos are from the Broken era that all carried one theme: torture. When the album was released in late 1992, there was supposed to be an accompanying film titled The Broken Movie but was never released because of its graphic content. Although it’s now a bootleg (go to www.parental-advisory.com/ for the video order), The Broken Movie was described as The Blair Witch Project meets Natural Born Killers where a man is tortured to death by watching NIN videos from the Broken album. While a few of those videos made it to MTV, some were edited or censored due to its violent and graphic content. In Closure, they’re seen unedited and uncensored for the first times (for those who didn’t get The Broken Movie bootleg).

First is a video for the album’s intro Pinion that starts off with a toilet flushing some water and camera footage goes into the pipes (For you MTV geeks of the 1990s, this was the footage used for Alternative Nation back in the mid-90s). What wasn’t shown on MTV for that video of where all of the water was going because of what was revealed which turned out to be a person in latex or leather clothing getting water in his mouth while being tied up in a room that looked like a room at a mental hospital. The next video for Wish showed the band performing inside a cage with a large group of people outside of the cage trying to get in as if they wanted to kill the band for some obvious reason. The video also included a man hanging inside a circular structure only wearing underwear and a guy doing a back flip on top of the cage.

The next two videos were definitely never shown on MTV for its graphic nature and they’re very good reasons why it should never be shown. First is the video for the instrumental track Help Me I Am In Hell that featured a man inside a small room eating steak and wine with millions of flies all over him that featured extreme close-ups of the flies on his face, his food, the wine, and everything else including brief shots of the man wearing S&M gear. A man who is eating steak and flies is something that is not to be seen on MTV and the next video in the collection is another video banned by MTV for its graphic content. Happiness In Slavery is a highly disturbing video that features a man (played by the late S&M artist Bob Flanagan) who goes into a room where he sits in a chair where his body parts are torn including his nipples and various parts which won’t be mentioned and his body is being fed to worms as his body parts get grinded as worm food that shows a reference to the Pink Floyd songs Comfortably Numb and Waiting For The Worms from the 1979 masterpiece The Wall.

The final video from the Broken era is the video for Gave Up that features an outside shot of Lake Geneva studio the band was recording in the EP that leads to an inside shot of the band recording the song in Le Pig Studio where they were recording The Downward Spiral. The video is basically NIN recording the song but seeing it now shows that the five men minus the engineers recording the track are now all in five different bands. Aside from Trent Reznor who still is the man behind NIN are Richard Patrick on guitar who is now the leader for Filter; Chris Vrenna on drums who is now a solo artist on his own under the name Tweaker; studio keyboardist and engineer Brian Liesegang who co-founded Filter with Patrick until he departed for a solo career of his own coming soon; and finally, there’s a then-unknown Marilyn Manson aka Brian Warner pretending to play guitar on the track as they all the play the song aggressively and watch out for Liesegang’s computer as there’s a insult to a certain record executive.

The next series of videos in the collection are from The Downward Spiral era minus the video for Burn. First is the one-shot video for March Of The Pigs that featured the Spiral era lineup of Reznor, Vrenna, James Wooley, Danny Lohner, and Robin Finck playing the song as Trent throws the microphones and jumps on his band mates while wearing those nice shiny pants. The video had a much funnier side when it was played on Beavis & Butthead when Butthead farts after the part of “Doesn’t it make you feel better” which gave the song a nice added sense of humor. The next three videos are all live shots by Simon Maxwell from the band’s tour for The Downward Spiral from 1994 to 1996. First is a performance of the song Eraser that featured the band behind a movie screen where the screen is showing mountains and deserts of the Southwestern American landscape and blurry but visible shots of the band (minus Wooley who is then replaced by Charlie Clouser in late ’94) as they perform the song that then goes into the angry part of the song as the screen shows a flurry of images as the band plays behind it.

The second live video is a performance of Hurt that showed Trent Reznor playing behind the screen showing images of death like a dead animal, the Holocaust, wounded soldiers, explosions, and other horrifying images that makes this video one of the most powerful in the band’s video history as it ends with a bird catching a fish. Next is a powerful performance of Wish that featured pulsating light flashes for the fast-paced industrial classic and shots of the band members playing their instruments in an intense pace that is a huge standout in the video collection. Next is what some consider one of the best videos of all-time and the video is Closer. The video that starts out with a heart pumping out air with Reznor singing in a microphone shaped like a nipple that also features a naked woman levitating eggs by her finger and a crucified monkey. Directed by Mark Romanek, the uncensored version shown on Closure also features disturbing images of the crucified monkey, the naked woman wearing a black mask with a gold crucifix in the middle of the mask, pictures of genitals, and other disturbing images that makes the video one of the greatest of all-time.

The final video again shot by Romanek is The Perfect Drug which was made for about $950,000 and it will possibly the last big budget video NIN will make. The video inspired by the Gothic images of late author/illustrator Edward Gorey that featured Reznor and his band (minus Robin Finck who left in ’96 and returned in ’99) wearing 19th Century Gothic clothes in a Gothic house setting with Reznor in a cold pool and standing in a platform with his new dog Daisy May. The video also featured twin Oriental women in the video including one of them who hands Trent an obscure 19th Century drink where the video flashes green-light images and Reznor then playing a piano at the end of the video.

Closure is an excellent collection from NIN that marks the end of an era for Trent Reznor. The documentary and video collection is a must-have for NIN fans that wanted to see the band up close and their uncensored videos. Although the NIN video collection isn’t complete, the uncensored videos make the whole package an essential for any devoted NIN fan. Though it’s a collection that looks to NIN in their most successful period, Closure really serves as a final page in the Self Destruct era of 1994 to 1997 as NIN moves on to a new period of creativity and artistry. Closure is a look-back at Reznor’s most successful period and a look at the great videos NIN have made in its rich history.

***(Update 3/1/09)***

Originally slated for a 2004 was the Closure DVD that was supposed to include various extras including tour footage from the band's 1988-1991 tours including Lollapalooza '91. Other extras included the making of Closer plus rare footage including the original March of the Pigs video.

Unfortunately, due to issues with Interscope and Universal, the DVD remains shelved for an official release and very likely for many years. In 2006, an unofficial leak of the contents from the Closure DVD including The Broken Movie was release in December 2006. Rumor has it that it was Trent Reznor who leaked the content for fans to download to make their own Closure DVD. Fans can wait for years but for anyone who still has the Closure VHS set and want to convert to DVD should try and find the content through file-sharing or torrent programs.

NIN Reviews:

Pretty Hate Machine/Broken Era (1989-1992): halo 1 - halo 2 - halo 3 - halo 4 - halo 5 - halo 6

The Downward Spiral Era (1994-1997): halo 7 - halo 8 - halo 8 DE - halo 9 - halo 10 - halo 11

The Fragile Era (1999-2002): halo 13 - halo 14 - halo 15.1 - halo 15.2 - halo 15.3 - halo 16 - halo 17 DE - halo 17 DVD

With Teeth/Year Zero Era: halo 18 - halo 19 - halo 20 - halo 21 - halo 22 - halo 23 - halo 24 - halo 25

Ghosts I-IV/The Slip Era (2008): halo 26 - halo 27

Soundtracks/Miscellaneous:  (The Crow) - (Natural Born Killers) - (Lost Highway) - (Tomb Raider) - (The Limitless Potential) - (Strobe Light)

Promos:  (seed 1) - (seed 2) - (seed 3) - (seed 4) - (seed 5) - (seed 6)

Live Shows: (NIN/Bauhaus/TV on the Radio-6/7/06 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) - (NIN/Deerhunter-8/13/08 Duluth, GA Gwinett Arena) - (NIN/Jane's Addiction/Street Sweeper Social Club-5/10/09 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater)

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older