Synopsis

Nine Inch Nails' "Broken" is a roughly 20-minute horror short built around the band's 1992 EP. A kidnapped man is taken to a basement, where a masked captor records a series of brutal assaults on video. The story is intercut with music-video segments for songs including "Wish," "Happiness in Slavery," and "Gave Up," gradually blurring the line between performance and staged snuff film. The film ends with the victim's apparent execution and the killer's own startling fate.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was released in 1993 but never received an official commercial home-video release. Its extreme violence and sexualized gore contributed to its underground reputation.

• "Broken" circulated widely through bootleg VHS copies during the 1990s. The poor quality of many copies strengthened the false impression that viewers were watching an actual snuff film.

• The film combines several pieces connected to the EP, including "Pinion," "Wish," "Help Me I Am in Hell," "Happiness in Slavery," and a distinct film version of "Gave Up." The "Gave Up" sequence is not the same performance video later issued on "Closure."

• "Happiness in Slavery" was banned by music-video broadcasters in multiple territories because of its graphic imagery. Its appearance within "Broken" helped make the short film one of the most notorious artifacts in 1990s alternative music culture.

• Richard Patrick appears as a police officer in the "Gave Up" segment, while performance footage was filmed at Le Pig, the Los Angeles house where Nine Inch Nails worked on the "Broken" material and "The Downward Spiral."