Nine Inch Nails - Closure

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.


Good, but slightly disappointing   July 6, 2000
24 out of 29 found this review helpful

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.


Great Double Video Set from NIN   March 14, 2001
dolly_ (maryland)
19 out of 19 found this review helpful

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.


Disappointed   December 8, 1999
15 out of 19 found this review helpful

Yes, i must confess, i'm not a crazy NIN fan, but i do like their music, and purchased this video because I wanted to get a glimpse of what life was like on the road, and get a sense of NIN as people, and not just as practicioners. The whole documentary tape was a disappointment because it was so finely crafted to music and visual cuts and styles that you never got a sense of where anybody was or what the context was. The documentary was more of a celebration of themselves, and in my opinion was self indulgent, and didn't give the viewer anything to go on. But if you are interested in artistic representation you will like the documentary video, which in itself is one long, crafted music video. If you are looking for a straightforward documentary on tour, you won't get it.

The second tape contains all their videos, including the ones that are banned from music television (Happiness in Slavery), and are interesting to watch as forms of art. I have to say that Happiness in Slavery is the most disturbing video I have ever seen, so if you like the perverse and strange you will definetely like this video package.