The Broken Movie

Directed and shot by Peter Christopherson and written, co-starring, and scored by Trent Reznor, The Broken Movie is a twenty-minute short film in which a young man is kidnapped and tortured as he’s forced to watch videos. The film is a companion piece to the 1992 EP by Nine Inch Nails that is presented as a snuff film to play into many of Reznor’s dark vision of the record with help from Christopherson who would also direct a couple of the music videos in the film with the duo of Eric Goode and Serge Becker directing two of the videos and Jon Reiss directing a video. The result is a grisly, disgusting, and insane short film from Peter Christopher and Trent Reznor.

The film follows a young man who is taken by a mysterious man in a mask as he’s forced to watch four music videos while being tortured, sodomized, and all sorts of things as it is being filmed for a snuff film. That is pretty much the premise as it is presented in graphic detail by director Peter Christopherson who shoots it on a hand-held home video camera where this young man is being tortured into watching these five music videos. Two of the videos by Eric Goode and Serge Becker for the instrumentals Pinion and Help Me I Am in Hell show two ideas of torture as the former features what happens when a toilet flushes and where does it go while the latter involves a man eating steak in a room surrounded by flies that is inter-cut with him in S&M gear.

The video for Happiness in Slavery by Jon Reiss is a video of absolute extremes which features the late performance artist Bob Flanagan getting ready to sit on a torture device that is gruesome to watch in terms of what happens to Flanagan and its aftermath. The video for Wish by Christopherson that features NIN playing inside a cage with rabid fans wanting to kill them is the tamest of the five as a version of Gave Up is essentially a video of Reznor singing in black-and-white footage on a TV screen while the mysterious man unmasks and tortures his victim that is inter-cut with the aftermath that features then-NIN live guitarist/future co-founder of Filter in Richard Patrick as a police officer who goes into the scene of the crime. The film opens and ends with a man on his final walk before he is to be hanged as it play into the narrative over what had just happened.

The Broken Movie is a repulsive and diabolical promotional short film from Peter Christopherson but for all of the right reasons. It’s a film that is meant to be confrontational and controversial as an extremely dark vision from Trent Reznor over what a visual interpretation of his EP should be. It’s a film that is definitely not for everyone as well as being hard to find, unless you’re a NIN fan, which is often the case for a film that was never intended for a commercial release. In the end, The Broken Movie is a fucked-up yet incredible promotional short film from Peter Christopherson and Trent Reznor.

Nine Inch Nails: halos: halo 1 - halo 2 - halo 3 - halo 4 - halo 5 - halo 6 - halo 7 – halo 8 – halo 9 – halo 10 – halo 11 – halo 12 - halo 13 – (halo 14) – (halo 15) – (halo 16) – (halo 17) - (halo 18) – (halo 19) – (halo 20) – (halo 21) – (halo 22) - (halo 23) – (halo 24) – (halo 25) – (halo 26) – (halo 27) - (halo 28) – (halo 29) – (halo 30) – (halo 31) – (halo 32)

seeds: (seed 1) – (seed 2) – (seed 3) – (seed 4) – (seed 5) – (seed 6) – (seed 7) – (seed 8)

Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross Film Soundtracks: null 1 - null 2 - (null 3) – (null 4) – (null 5) – (null 6) - (null 7)

Soundtracks/Miscellaneous: Natural Born Killers OST – Quake OST - Lost Highway OST

Live Shows: (NIN/Bauhaus/TV on the Radio-6/7/06 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) – (NIN/Deerhunter-8/13/08 Duluth, GA Gwinnett Arena) - (Jane’s Addiction/NIN/Street Sweeper Social Club-5/10/09 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) – NIN/Godspeed You! Black Emperor-10/24/13 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena - NIN/Jesus & Mary Chain/Tobacco-9/27/18 Atlanta, GA Fox Theatre

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