Industrial

Johnny YesNo (1983, Peter Care) [Full Length Version]
The only reason this short film was ever heard of is due to the Cabaret Voltaire soundtrack, which is rather nice. The film however isn’t. It suffers from embarrassing dialogue and an incomprehensible ‘storyline’, but has the occasional nice visual flourish, particularly during a drug comedown scene. A curio for industrial obsessive’s only, some things are better left a mystery.
2/5



Decoder (1984, Muscha)
Undoubtedly the most industrial movie ever, featuring William Burroughs, FM Einheit of Einsturzende Neubauten, Genesis P-Orridge (over the top pretentious embarrassing amateur dramatics) of Throbbing Gristle, as well as Christiane Felscherinow, the real life basis of the overrated Christiane F drugs film, and seemingly no proper actors. The hard to decipher storyline is influenced by Burroughs writing and ideas Throbbing Gristle had about their music, and involves people carrying tape recorders and using ‘illegal sound waves’ to make people in fast food chains sick, leading to riots. The soundtrack featuring Soft Cell, The The and Einstuzende Neubauten is the best part of the film. The cinematography uses colour filters in a Natural Born Killers way and occasional clips of SPK/power electronics style mutilation footage. The editing is slow paced and it would have worked better as a short film rather than clocking in at an hour and a half.
2/5