The Nickel Cinema
117-119 Clerkenwell Road
London, EC1R 5BY
A fully licensed grindhouse cinema, bar and video shop
Shop and bar are open 1hr prior to screenings.
Listings ︎︎︎
About ︎︎︎
Press ︎︎︎
Contact
Instagram | X | Email
Please note: as a small capacity grassroots theatre, we are unable to offer refunds or exchanges on tickets. No late admittance after 15 minutes!
CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE
(1980, Italy, Antonio Margheriti)
“POWs in Vietnam... Starved in captivity... released with a taste for human flesh”
Released from captivity in Vietnam, two American Army officers return to civilian life and discover they have acquired an insatiable taste for human flesh. A city is terrorised… as they stalk the inhabitants to satisfy their primitive appetites.
Doors 8.15pm
THE MUSIC MACHINE
(1979, UK, Ian Sharp)
“First Saturday Night Fever, then Grease, now… The Music Machine“
At a famous London disco venue, a competition is announced to select two dancers to star in a new film.
With introduction by Alan Jones, who will be signing copies of his new book Discomania.
Doors 5.30pm
THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY
(1978, USA, Robert Klane)
“After 5000 years of civilization, we all need a break”
It’s Friday and everyone is going to the hot new disco. The Commodores are scheduled to play if Floyd shows up with the instruments and Nicole dreams of becoming a disco star. Other characters are there to win the dance contest, or to put a little excitement into a fifth anniversary.
With introduction by Alan Jones, who will be signing copies of his new book Discomania.
Doors 8.20pm
LIGHTNING OVER BRADDOCK: A RUSTBOWL FANTASY
(1988, USA, Tony Buba)
Tony Buba, a film maker from Braddock, Pennsylvania, tells the story of his hometown’s decline (along with the rest of the steel mill towns along the Monongahela River) while he dreams of making higher budget films. The picture documents, in a lighthearted way, the community anxiety and activism that accompanied the failure of the steel industry around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Screening with kind permission by Tony Buba.
Doors 5.30pm
REMEMBER MY NAME
(1978, USA, Alan Rudolph)
“Everyone knows a woman is fragile and helpless. Everybody’s wrong”
Just released from prison, a young woman arrives in town to “start a new life,” but soon begins stalking a married construction worker for no apparent reason, turning his life inside out and eventually terrorizing him and his wife.
Doors 8.20pm
WHITE OF THE EYE
(1987, USA, Donald Cammell)
“No woman is safe... while he is loose!”
In a wealthy and isolated desert community, a sound expert is targeted as the prime suspect of a series of brutal murders of local suburban housewives who were attacked and mutilated in their homes. As he desperately tries to prove his innocence, his wife starts to uncover startling truths…
Doors 5.30pm
MYSTERY FILM
(?, ?, ?)
The cinematically courageous are welcome to join us for a surprise, seldom screened film.
Adults only, not for the easily offended.
Doors 8.30pm
SCREAMPLAY
(1984, USA, Rufus Butler Seder)
PART OF ‘LOS ANGELES HATES ITSELF’
A talented writer, Edgar Allen, arrives in Hollywood with big dreams but is quickly pulled into a world of madness and depravity. A detective investigating a series of murders discovers that they are similar to the murders that occur in the new script by Edgar. Who will survive and what parts will be left for them?
Doors 5.30pm
(1984, USA, Rufus Butler Seder)
PART OF ‘LOS ANGELES HATES ITSELF’
A talented writer, Edgar Allen, arrives in Hollywood with big dreams but is quickly pulled into a world of madness and depravity. A detective investigating a series of murders discovers that they are similar to the murders that occur in the new script by Edgar. Who will survive and what parts will be left for them?
Doors 5.30pm
THE UNKNOWN
(1927, USA, Todd Browning)
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: WITH LIVE SCORE BY FISCAL HARM
On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder – a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster’s daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo’s desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.
Doors 5.30pm / 8pm
SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY
(1971, Spain, Jesús Franco)
JESS FRANCO DOUBLE FEATURE WITH BLOODY MOON!
A young doctor kills himself after a medical committee terminates his research into human embryos, considering it too inhumane. His wife then seeks revenge on those who drove her husband to his death by luring each member of the committee into compromising situations and then killing them one by one.
Presented by filmmaker and programmer Craig Wiliams @mondodraig
Doors 6pm
BLOODY MOON
(1981, Spain, Jesús Franco)
JESS FRANCO DOUBLE FEATURE WITH SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY!
“Don’t panic… It only happens once in a… Bloody Moon.”
After being released from a mental asylum, a disfigured man becomes obsessed with a student at his sister’s boarding school while grappling with his dark past.
Presented by filmmaker and programmer Craig Wiliams @mondodraig
Doors 8.40pm
(1981, Spain, Jesús Franco)
JESS FRANCO DOUBLE FEATURE WITH SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY!
“Don’t panic… It only happens once in a… Bloody Moon.”
After being released from a mental asylum, a disfigured man becomes obsessed with a student at his sister’s boarding school while grappling with his dark past.
Presented by filmmaker and programmer Craig Wiliams @mondodraig
Doors 8.40pm
FRANKENHOOKER
(1990, USA, Frank Henenlotter)
“A terrifying tale of sluts and bolts.”
A medical school dropout loses his fiancée in a tragic lawnmower incident and decides to bring her back to life. Unfortunately, he was only able to save her head, so he goes to the red light district in the city and lures prostitutes into a hotel room so he can collect body parts to reassemble her.
Doors 8.30pm
WOMEN & COCAINE PRESENT: SEXTETTE
(1977, USA, Ken Hughes)
“She won’t be satisfied until she’s loved by all mankind, one man at a time.”
Glamorous silver screen sex symbol Marlo Manners is enjoying her honeymoon with Sir Michael Barrington, husband number six. As luck would have it, an international conference is at the same hotel and the Russian delegate is threatening to derail negotiations unless he can have one more fling with Marlo. Adding to the complications is a tape Marlo has made detailing all of her affairs and scandals, which her manager is desperately trying – and failing – to destroy.
Doors 5.30pm / 8.15pm
DANGEROUS GAME
(1993, USA, Abel Ferrara)
PART OF ‘LOS ANGELES HATES ITSELF’
“Turbulence. Redemption. Hollywood”
A New York film director, working on his latest movie in Los Angeles, begins to reflect the actions in his movie and real life, especially when he begins an affair with the lead actress. With Harvey Keitel, Madonna and James Russo.
Doors 5.30pm / 8.30pm
AN EVENING WITH JASON HARVEY (1hr) + QUIGLEY (2003)
A presentation of thoughts and poetry,expressed via a series of short and powerful videos made with the computer.
This will be followed by a presentation of the seminal man becomes dog film “Quigley” (2003).
Shot on a shoestring, packed with attitude, and dripping with cult charisma.
Doors 6pm
HE NEVER DIES: THE FILMS OF KALIL HADDAD
(Short films, Canada, Kalil Haddad)
A programme of Toronto-based experimental filmmaker Kalil Haddad’s incendiary and truly strange work. A retrospective screening that shows a young artist’s evolution over the years, the progression of films tells a unique story: one that grows increasingly disturbing and aesthetically bold, culminating in the truly shocking VICTIM OF CIRCUMSTANCE.
Doors 6pm / 8.30pm
REFLECTIONS OF EVIL
(1978, USA, Robert Klane)
PART OF ‘LOS ANGELES HATES ITSELF’
A night celebrating outsider artist Damon Packard’s genius low-budget visions.
“Terror Beyond Imagination”
Julie, a teen who died from a PCP overdose in the early ’70s, searches from beyond the grave for her younger brother Bob, who now in the ’90s is an obese watch seller suffering with sucrose intolerance. A very rare UK screening.
Doors 6pm
SUPERVIXENS
(1975, USA, Russ Meyer)
“Too much… for one movie!”
Clint must flee after his wife is killed by a psychopathic cop, who tries to pin the murder on him.
Truly one of Russ Meyer’s best.
Doors 5.30pm
UP!
(1976, USA, Russ Meyer)
“If you don’t see Up! … you’ll feel down!”
Adolf Hitler is hiding out in California under the identity of Adolf Schwartz; however, he is soon murdered by a mysterious assailant. This coincides with the arrival of a mysterious woman in a nearby town. Whatever the case might be, nobody seems interested in investigating the crime, but there are many who are interested in her.
Doors 8.30pm
FORCE OF EVIL
(1948, USA, Abraham Polonsky)
“The sensational story of a numbers king whose number was up!“
Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.
Doors 5.30pm / 8pm
BABY BLOOD
(1990, France, Alan Robak)
“It’s time to feed the baby.”
A cruel circus owner beats and abuses his pregnant wife. One day the circus receives a leopard newly captured in Africa, but the animal soon dies. However, an evil creature that was inside the leopard bursts out of the animal’s body, burrows into the wife’s body and takes over her fetus. It soon starts demanding blood, and the woman goes searching for victims for her new “baby.”
Doors 6pm
SHRIME TIME: A NIGHT OF BIZARRO UNDERSEEN ANIME
From radical student animation collectives to sun-bleached techno-dystopias and gore-drenched horror, Shrime Time shines where the sun daren’t: revealing the backside of seldom-seen Japanese visual culture.
Expect screenings from the 1960s to the present day, paired with special guests: musicians, artists, researchers and those obsessed with the outermost edges of Japan’s visual imagination.
The Shirime a yōkai (Japanese folkloric spirit and the evenings conveniently misspelled namesake) whose sole purpose is to startle unsuspecting samurai by revealing an eyeball in place of an arsehole. In his sick, twisted way, Shirime embodies the very spirit of B-cinema - a flash of grotesque brilliance, whose origin and intent remain a mystery, leaving the path forever altered.
So come. Sit still in the dark.
Let the rectacular eye stare deep into your curious soul.
The Shrime is watching.
Doors 6pm
UPTIGHT
(1968, USA, Jules Dassin)
“A man on the run. A life at stake. A people about to explode.”
Black militants building up an arsenal of weapons in preparation for a race war are betrayed by one of their own.
Doors 5pm / 8pm
RATS
(2024, USA, Maxwell Nalevansky, Carl Fry)
With video intro by Maxwell Nalevansky
In a surreal small‑town version of 2007 Texas, a young graffiti artist lands in jail and is coerced into spying on his cousin—suspected by an unhinged cop of dealing nuclear weapons. What follows is a frenetic, gross‑humored ride through conspiracy, over-the-top characters, and chaotic counterculture.
Doors 6pm
COMBAT SHOCK
(1986, USA, Buddy Giovinazzo)
With video interview with director Buddy G
“Fighting, killing, maiming. Agent Orange and the torture cages were the easy part!”
A dangerously disturbed Vietnam veteran struggles with life 15 years after his return home, and slowly falls into insanity from his gritty urban lifestyle.
Doors 8.40pm
117-119 Clerkenwell Road
London, EC1R 5BY
A fully licensed grindhouse cinema, bar and video shop
Shop + bar are open
1hr prior to screenings
Instagram | X | Email
Trailer ︎︎︎
Listings ︎︎︎
About ︎︎︎
Press ︎︎︎
Mailing list ︎︎︎