The Nine Inch Nails movie that was too shocking to air
Part of the appeal behind heavy metal music comes from how much of an evil stigma comes with it. Even though it should all come back around to the music, there is something about the loud and aggressive music that ignites a fury in fans and sparks fear in the hearts of everyone else who hears it. Although Nine Inch Nails were on the cutting edge of industrial music throughout the beginning of their career, one of their first videos was too shocking to air on MTV.
Having already been through the recording cycle for Pretty Hate Machine, Trent Reznor saw the album as a way to let out all the aggression that he felt towards the world. Once he started to make the rounds on tour, though, he learned that every single problem he had was still there, only compounded by the new issue of having a relentless touring schedule.
Looking to document his pain, Reznor gave fans a preview of where his next album would go on the EP Broken. Spanning only a half hour, the album features some of the most disturbed recordings that Reznor would ever create, earning him a Grammy for the caustic single ‘Wish’.
When it came time to shoot promotional material for the album, Reznor didn’t want to go down the traditional route of music videos. While ‘Wish’ may have gotten a video of its own, the initial idea was to make the equivalent of a visual album, filming different pieces of material inspired by the lyrics.
Once the band started filming the material, though, their label knew it was far too graphic for any eyes to see. First coming up with the idea in the studio, Reznor thought, “What if we build a framework around these songs? What if we took an approach where it really was scary, instead of a cop-out horror movie nod to the camera? What if it felt real?”.
Depicting the scenario of a man being tortured and killed, the film’s design would be deemed too grotesque for anyone to take, later being shelved, and only the videos for ‘Wish’ and ‘Happiness in Slavery’ survive. Given the material he was working with then, Reznor thought that releasing the visual album would bring a lot of unwanted press to the next album, The Downward Spiral.
Even though the video was shelved, Broken would garner controversy later when the footage was leaked online. When talking about the film, director Peter Christopherson expressed regret over the leaks, which were known to cause mental distress and fear in those who watched them.
Later, speaking about the movie, Christopherson said, “Everyone was making bad dubs of bad dubs, what I at the time considered to be pretty obvious clues that this was a fake and actually making a comment on those things, were lost by the bad quality. Unfortunately, a lot of people, especially kids, started to think it was a real snuff movie”.
While Broken may not have hit audiences as Reznor intended, it remains one of the most haunting looks into his tortured mind at the time. The Downward Spiral was just around the corner, and industrial fans were in for one of the most gripping emotional experiences in the genre’s history.
