Customer Reviews

Nine Inch Nails - Closure [VHS]

5 star:		(98)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

As a NIN fan, you will Love and Respect Closure(Halo 12). One reason, Trent Reznor is a very discreet man and he's not very public. You don't get to see much on NIN behind the scenes. If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing NIN live, you will love Closure. Video #1 is a documentary of the guys at work on their Self Destruct Tour dated 1994-1998. Most of the footage seems to be 1994-1996. It has great Concert and behind the scenes footage. It does have a lot of flashing lights and it tends to jump around alot, but this is NIN we're talking about. It's nice to see Trent, Robin, Chris, Danny and the other guys doing their jobs. Concert footage includes: Terrible lie, Piggy, Down in it, March of the Pigs, Wish, Hurt w/David Bowie & Something I Can Never Have. Video #2 is of most of NIN's videos...including the banned Happiness in Slavery and the un-cut Down in it and Closer. The other videos included are Head like a Hole, Sin, Pinion, Wish, Help me I'm in Hell, Gave up , March of the Pigs, a triplet live of Eraser/Hurt/Wish and my absolute all time favorite, The Perfect Drug! Closure was well put together! Definitely worth 5 stars!

The first video in this package is a collection of live performances and backstage footage. There's nothing very revealing about frontman Trent Reznor, and the sound and picture quality are, as the disclaimer warns, "compromised", but there are many choice moments, the most obvious one being David Bowie joining the band for Hurt. If you persevere through the poor sound, there is some very funny conversation - David Bowie (again) telling of a 'fan's' mix-up of Bowie and Vanilla Ice is one example.

Part 2 is a collection of all of NIN's music videos up to The Perfect Drug (with the exception of Burn, which, for completists, can be found on the second tape of the Natural Born Killers Director's Cut, and the complete Broken movie - sorry, can't help you there). It opens with a short video of A Warm Place (these instrumental videos are scattered through the collection, along with short film reels of, among other things, an elephant being electrocuted), but the first video proper is Head Like A Hole, a fairly MTV-friendly clip with jump-cuts galore. It's not exactly ground-breaking, but it does the job nicely.

The second video (Sin) is where it starts to get nasty. Those with any sort of moral objection to homosexuals smearing blood over each other should probably hit the fast-forward button. Anyone who is comfortable with explicit nudity, however, should be fine, although the meagre two-minute run time may disappoint you.

Down In It is a return to Head Like A Hole territory (it has the same director) although slightly less MTV-friendly, as it includes a dead Trent Reznor. This is the uncut version.

The next few videos make up most of the tracks (except for Last) from the Broken EP (including the instrumentals). Standouts are Wish, in which the band perform in a cage surrounded by a bloodthirsty mob trying to get in, and Help Me I Am In Hell, in which a man eats his dinner in a room filled with flies - this one may prove a little too much for people with an aversion to bugs, but it's nothing compared to Happiness In Slavery, in which "supermasochist" performance artist Bob Flannigan is tortured, ripped apart and eventually minced by a dentist's chair-esque contraption. If you have any doubts, steer clear. This was banned for a reason. PS. The video for Gave Up is not the infamous snuff video, but there is an appearance by a virtually unrecognisable Marilyn Manson.

The March Of The Pigs video is just the band performing live in a white room. The sound's not great, but it's worth it to see a manic Trent Reznor going through three microphones.

Next up is a live triplet of Eraser, Hurt and Wish. Besides the enormous projected snakes, time-lapse photography of dead foxes etc, it's really just what you'd expect. Excellent stuff, and with far better sound quality than the first video.

And now, the high point of the package (for me at least) - the uncut version of Closer, in all its perverse, disturbing glory. Its inventive images (which I'm not going to spoil for you) would be worth the asking price on their own.

Finally, The Perfect Drug, which is a little like a post-Closer cool-down. Both the song and video are superb (and the video is definitely worth seeing for Reznor's rather fetching moustache), but it's got a more cold, gothic feel. It's a shift in tone, and it works very well.

Overall, this is a superb collection, and worth buying, because if you are any kind of NIN fan, you will watch them repeatedly.

Video one shows concert and behind the scenes footage from the Self-Destruct tour. The behind the scenes footage has Trent and the boys bringing down an exit sign by throwing beer bottles at it, Danny Lohner in a thong, Bowie tells about getting confused with Vanilla Ice, Trent trying decide how to deal with Robin's hand injury, Jim Rose Circus among other things. Live performances are of Terrible Lie, Piggy, Down in It, March of the Pigs, the Only Time, Sanctified, Wish, Hurt (featuring Bowie) and Something I Can Never Have.

Video Two is of all of their videos previous to The Fragile besides Burn, the original March of the Pigs video (never released) and the Broken movie (if that counts as being a music video). It has Head Like a Hole, Sin, Down In It, Pinion, Wish, Help Me I'm in Hell, Happiness in Slavery, Gave Up, March of the Pigs, Eraser/Hurt/Wish (live), Closer and the Perfect Drug. Each of their videos is unique and not like any of their other ones. Marilyn Manson is in the video for Gave Up and Richard Patrick of Filter is shown in some of the early videos. Mark Romanek directed the last two videos and in my opinion, they are two of the best videos ever made. Every time I watch them, I catch something new that I hadn't noticed before.

If you are a NIN fan, you NEED to get this.

My job is in the music business, and unfortunately it can sometimes be a constant reminder that the most modern and popular music is in pretty bad shape. Nine Inch Nails is quite the exception, and I've been a fan of Reznor's work since 1990's "Pretty Hate Machine". Closure is a like a spicy gumbo of eye candy and orchestrated noise enclosed into Nine Inch Nails' time capsule. This video consists of two tapes; one is a live documentary during the Self Destruct tour and the other is the complete, uncut music videos. Shots of the live documentary include Trent getting irritated with a few lighting technicians, live song performances, backstage mischief with an exit sign, and getting dressed for performances. Several guests appearing are Marilyn Manson, The Jim Rose Circus, and David Bowie. The documentary is well edited and truly shows the hectic and ever changing conditions of touring. The only downfall of this video is the sound quality at times is sketchy and sounds very much like a bootleg. Hypnotic, compelling, and often disturbing, Trent delivers with all the music videos in chronological order and unedited on the second tape. Both unreleased, "Sin" and "Happiness In Slavery" are included in the line up. Throughout the videos, you are able to see the evolution of NIN and its gorgeous visual depictions of songs like "Wish", "Down In It", and several live performances. "Closer" replaces the pattern of "scene missing" signs on tv with nudity, Trent in bondage, and S & M overtones (which I might add could very well worth every penny). At the close of the videos is "The Perfect Drug". Directed by Mark Romanek, it's my personal favorite of all the videos. It depicts Trent at his most beautiful, complete with gothic imagery and costume. Few NIN fans that do not own Closure have rarely seen this video, and its probably the most visually impressive of them all. In conclusion, this video is a must have for every NIN fan's collection not only for watching it at your convenience but for its aestetic and sometimes humorous content.

This is what the other reviews have left out and what has maybe kept you from considering the purchase of this video set: the mystery of tape #1.

Tape #1 is a rockumentary of the Self-Destruct tour as others have mentioned. The camera work of the live shows is generally professional, multi-cam. Sounds good so far. But as others have mentioned, the sound is not always what you would expect out of a professional soundboard. It does often sound like a B+ bootleg recording. Thin on some songs and compressed on others. This should not discourage you from getting Closure. It still works, and the visuals alone wonderfully document the feel and violence of the band live. Studio tricks and overdubs would have ruined it completely. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to see this footage. If you are a fan of the band I think you will too. Most importantly, here is the track list (intermixed with backstage "camcorder" footage and other freakshow nonsense!).

Terrible Lie
Piggy
Down In It
March Of The Pigs
Eraser (studio remix) short video filler of tour life
The Only Time
Sanctified (studio) short video filler of tour life
Wish
Hurt (with David Bowie)
Something I Can Never Have
A Warm Place (studio) short video filler of tour life

I hate myself for not buying this set earlier. Buy it this instant or risk a life of regret!

However, there are three things I think you should know.

A. You should know that this is a bit more than a simple videography. Specifically, I expected the second tape to give me every NIN video (up to "The Perfect Drug"), and it did that. But it's much more unified than the usual one-video-after-another videography format. It doesn't have that "greatest hits" feel. The classic videos are gathered together with strange turn of the century (?) film reels ("Electrocuting the Elephant" is a memorable one), and several untitled arty "videos" for those quiet little "ninstrumentals" which appear between the better known songs-with-lyrics on "Broken" "The Downward Spiral" and "Further Down the Spiral." Both tapes are suitable for playing repeatedly during a loud-and-freaky party or for gathering your art school (not to mention psychology school) friends for viewing-and-analysis party.

B. You should know that these tapes are bizarrely packaged. Much as I love NIN, their packaging is getting stranger and stranger. In a way it's cool and in a way it's just tiresome. The "Broken" case is one thing, but by the time "The Fragile" rolled around... enough already. If you have a fetish for keeping your music stuff in near-new condition (I do), know that you will probably damage this video set the moment you receive it. The whole setup (an irritating Downward Spiral-esque plastic sleeve over a box around two boxes with the videos inside) made me feel like a spastic infant. Not to mention that the Part 2 tape has no content label; the videos and their credits don't appear anywhere except at the end of the tape. I'm sure they intend for you to view the whole tape as a unit (and you should), but I like to have a table of contents, you know? I'd rather have an elaborate brochure than a box that can only become tragically frayed. This is the only real complaint I have about this set, and it is not nearly enough to make me take off a star. But for anyone else with similar personal glitch, here's the video list from the end of Part 2:

"Head Like a Hole" Director: Eric Zimmerman ; "Sin" Director: Brett Turnbull ; "Down in It" Director: Eric Zimmerman/Benjamin Stokes ; "Pinion" Director: Eric Goode/Serge Becker ; "Wish" Director: Peter Christopherson ; "Help Me I am in Hell" Director: Eric Goode/Serge Becker ; "Happiness in Slavery" Director: Jon Reiss ; "March of the Pigs" Director: Peter Christopherson ; "Eraser/Hurt/Wish" - Live Director: Simon Maxwell ; "Closer" Director: Mark Romanek ; "The Perfect Drug" Director: Mark Romanek

C. You should know that this set is explicit. If you're a NIN fan, this probably won't bug you. If you can handle any one of these: movie gore, German sex art, or the surgery channel-- you'll be fine. There's an abstract quality to most of the creepier themes, but this is not for those with delicate sensibilities. I'm 24 years old and extremely liberal-minded, but I wouldn't give this set to a kid. If you're buying this for your 16-year-old grandkid because you saw NIN stickers on her stuff... well, you are so much cooler than my grandparents! But just know that back when they had X ratings, this probably would have gotten one.

That said, I don't want to discourage anyone. If you're a 16-year-old NIN fan, just promise not to go on some crazed Happiness in Slavery rampage, or it'll be Judas Priest all over again.

Closure is a masterpiece in more ways than one. Incredible editing combined with pectacular concert footage and NIN's amazing music videos (well, most of them) make Closure truly worth the money. The concert footage is great, and there are some incredibly moments, such as when a loose mikestand flies out of Trent's hand and hits the drummer (either Charlie Clouser or Chris Vrenna) in the head - and he keeps playing without missing a beat! Incredible - and the music videos are amazing as well. Closer is one of the greatest videos ever made, and they're all good. In short, if you like NIN, you MUST buy this.

a personal look at what went on backstage at NIN's self-destruct tour. although not as huge a NIN fan as I once was, I've probably watched this set at least a hundred times, and I continue to watch it on occaission just because it truly captures the band at their best. the live performances are so perfectly sloppy and intense... the shabby film quality in parts fits the music and the images so well it is hard to desribe. the whole thing just seems so natural. the second video featuring the actual music videos for NIN's songs are wonderful as well, in particular, the video for GAVE UP. this video, which simply depicts the band plus marilyn manson recording the song in the studio, is my favorite for some reason. maybe just because it humanizes the artists and shows where the music actually comes from.

This has pretty much everything you could possibly want. It has the music videos featured in the Broken movie (which was a snuff film that featured the music videos for BROKEN; It was never officialy released). They did change a few of the videos tho. They took out the part where they were killing the person in the "Wish" video, gave "Help Me I Am In Hell" a video instead of it being a black screen, and completely changed "Gave Up". The "Gave Up" that appears in CLOSURE features a very young Marilyn Manson on guitar and backing vocals. CLOSURE's first tape has live concert footage and behind the scenes stuff, including a live remix of the song "Hurt" with Bavid Bowie. The second tape is mostly music videos, with a few live songs. It also has the uncensored version of "Closer", which is great. CLOSURE covers everything from PRETTY HATE MACHINE to THE PERFECT DRUG, and is a must-have for the devoted NIN fan. If you have a weak stomach, this is definitly not for you.

Honestly, I expected much better out of an NIN video. Closure is good, but it has its flaws. My first qualm would be the concert footage. Some of it is down right ugly, and they could've chosen better songs to play for it. Don't get me wrong, I love all NIN songs, but some of the ones they chose to record for this video (The Only Time, Piggy) aren't the best live songs.

The backstage footage isn't all that great. Trent Reznor is the real highlight here, but other than him it's just really uninteresting. Lots of the stuff contained was unnecessary.

The second tape really holds up Closure. It contains all of the NIN music videos up until The Fragile (excluding Burn). Yes, even The Perfect Drug. All the videos are uncut and unedited, including Happiness In Slavery. But one question...where's The Broken Movie?

All in all, worth the money if, A) You are a hardcore Nine Inch Nails fan like myself, or B) just for the collection of music videos. Although by this review it sounds like I hate Closure, I actually like it very much. But expectation is the key to disappointment.