The Nickel | Independent Cinema in Clerkenwell, London

Please note we are unable to offer refunds or exchanges on tickets. No late admissions from 15 minutes after showtime.

THE STREET FIGHTER

(1974, Japan, Shigehiro Ozawa)

Terry Tsurugi (Sonny Chiba), a fiercely independent mercenary with a lethal blend of martial-arts prowess and combustible temper, is hired to protect the daughter of a recently deceased industrialist. When he discovers the Yakuza’s plan to abduct her and seize control of the family fortune, Terry turns against his former employers, igniting a violent turf war. His intervention triggers a chain of betrayals, ambushes, and bone-shattering confrontations that push him to the limits of loyalty, morality, and physical endurance.

A cornerstone of 1970s Japanese action cinema, The Street Fighter is defined by Chiba’s ferocious physicality and the film’s uncompromising approach to on-screen violence — a factor that earned it an historically rare X-rating in the United States. Ozawa’s direction favours speed, impact, and raw intensity, constructing a narrative where honour is fluid and survival depends on absolute ruthlessness. The result is a brutal, kinetic genre landmark that helped redefine martial-arts cinema for international audiences.

MISMANTLER

(2025, Ireland/UK, Andrew Keogh & Steven Stapleton)

In an indeterminate post-apocalyptic void, a solitary, guttural wanderer known only as the Mismantler traverses scorched landscapes of industrial refuse and decaying detritus, sorting, foraging, and interacting with a host of rust-coloured ruins. There’s no conventional plot or character arc to guide the eye — instead, the film immerses viewers in a stream of consciousness experience where sound, texture, and residual echoes of civilisation become the primary agents of engagement. The Mismantler’s world — half hallucination, half dystopian ruin — is populated by skeletal plains, junk-strewn flats, and fractured psychological terrain that resist narrative anchoring in favour of sensorial immersion.

Emerging from the fringes of experimental cinema, Mismantler defies conventional classification, operating more as prolonged audiovisual ritual than a traditional film. With a score by Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton and an aesthetic drawn from industrial drone, musique concrète, and visceral collage, the piece channels horror and unease through ambience, disjunction, and frayed perception rather than explicit spectacle. Its relentless juxtaposition of texture and tone places it in the lineage of cinematic weirdness that privileges affect over narrative coherence, crafting an experience as disorienting as it is hypnotic.

SCARLET WARNING 666

(1974, USA, Palmer Rockey)

A long-lost oddity of underground cinema, Scarlet Warning 666 stars cult auteur Palmer Rockey in multiple roles — including twin brothers trapped in an unfathomable tale of Satanic skullduggery, bizarre occult rituals, and “demonic assassination” on a country estate. The film’s narrative logic dissolves into a collage of ritual scenes, disjointed character arcs, and surreal confrontations with the infernal, as the characters grapple with forces they barely comprehend in an increasingly chaotic rural nightmare.

A notorious fixture in outsider film lore, Scarlet Warning 666 was restored after decades of obscurity and is celebrated (and derided) as a bewildering example of independent psychedelia and eccentric ambition. Palmer Rockey reportedly served not only as the film’s lead but also took on dozens of roles behind the camera in a project that defies conventional storytelling and embraces its own idiosyncratic creation mythology — alternately dismissed as “the worst movie ever made” and cherished as a cult curio.

IMPULSE

(1974, USA, William Grefé)

William Shatner delivers one of the strangest performances of his career as Matt Stone, a grifter and small-time gigolo whose polished charm conceals a deep, volatile psychosis. Moving from town to town, he preys on wealthy widows with a mix of seduction, manipulation, and escalating brutality. When he sets his sights on a vulnerable mother and her suspicious young daughter, the façade begins to slip, revealing a man governed by impulse, paranoia, and sudden eruptions of violence. As his behaviour grows increasingly erratic, the suburban setting becomes a pressure cooker primed for collapse.

A regional exploitation film shot in Florida, Impulse drifts between psychological thriller, lurid melodrama, and eccentric character study. Grefé’s direction foregrounds Shatner’s fevered performance — equal parts theatrical bravado and unnerving instability — while the film’s low-budget texture amplifies its atmosphere of mounting dread. The result is a peculiar, off-kilter artifact of 1970s American grindhouse cinema, where menace and camp intersect in unpredictable ways.

William Shatner audibly farts in this movie.

THE KING OF NEW YORK

(1990, USA, Abel Ferrara)

A newly released drug lord, Frank White, returns to New York with a mission that straddles philanthropy and ruthlessness. Surrounded by loyal enforcers, he seeks to reclaim territory from rival crews while attempting to position himself as a benefactor to the very communities harmed by the trade. As violence escalates, Frank’s ambitions draw the attention of a group of disillusioned police officers determined to stop him by any means necessary.

Operating in the blurred space between criminal enterprise and political aspiration, King of New York captures the city at a moment of volatility—its power structures brittle, its institutions compromised. Ferrara’s film blends nocturnal urban atmosphere with a commentary on moral erosion, spotlighting the uneasy symbiosis between outlaw mythmaking and systemic decay.

I DRINK YOUR BLOOD

(1970, USA, David E. Durston)

After a Satanic hippie cult terrorises a rural town and assaults a local family, a young boy retaliates by injecting rabies-infected animal blood into meat pies the group eagerly consumes. What begins as an act of impulsive vengeance triggers an escalating outbreak of uncontrollable violence, delirium, and psychosis, as the cult members — and those who cross their path — succumb to the disease. The town’s isolation becomes a crucible of panic where social order collapses under the pressure of infection and hysteria.

Produced at the height of the American exploitation boom, I Drink Your Blood fuses countercultural anxieties with shock-driven horror, reframing late-1960s generational conflict as a rabid plague narrative. Durston’s approach favours intensity over restraint, creating a feverish mix of grindhouse mayhem, regional detail, and abrasive sociopolitical subtext. The result remains a key example of early 1970s drive-in extremity — chaotic, confrontational, and unmistakably of its moment.

MYSTERY MOVIE

Not for the easily offended, and strictly programmed for adult audiences only - our mystery films are eye-popping forays into the bold and bonkers world of psychotronic cinema. Expect the unacceptable.

MANDINGO

(1975, USA, Richard Fleischer)

Set on a decaying Louisiana plantation in the antebellum South, the film centres on the Maxwell family, whose wealth and status depend entirely on the exploitation, abuse, and commodification of enslaved people. When the plantation heir (Perry King) enters into a forced marriage while simultaneously coercing an enslaved woman into a sexual relationship, the household fractures under layers of violence, resentment, and hypocrisy. Meanwhile, a prized fighter known as Mede (Ken Norton) is trained, traded, and brutalised as both labour and sport, his life governed by the plantation’s ruthless hierarchies.

Adapted from Kyle Onstott’s controversial novel, Mandingo confronts the brutality of slavery with a starkness unusual for mid-1970s Hollywood cinema. Fleischer’s direction emphasises systemic cruelty rather than melodramatic redemption, exposing the sexual exploitation, racialised violence, and economic rot underpinning plantation mythology. The result is an uncomfortable, confrontational work that strips away romanticised visions of the Old South, presenting a portrait of American history defined by domination, dehumanisation, and the corrosive effects of absolute power.

BONE

(1972, USA, Larry Cohen)

When a Beverly Hills couple — affluent in appearance but unraveling beneath the surface — discovers an intruder in their backyard, the encounter spirals into a tense, ambiguous standoff. Bone (Yaphet Kotto), the intruder, quickly recognises the fractures in their marriage and exploits them with a mix of menace, insight, and dark humour. What begins as a home-invasion scenario mutates into a psychological negotiation in which power shifts unpredictably, revealing the couple’s anxieties, prejudices, and long-suppressed resentments.

Operating at the intersection of social satire, exploitation cinema, and chamber psychological drama, Bone dismantles the architecture of suburban respectability with Cohen’s characteristic sharpness. The film uses its small cast and contained setting to probe race, class, and the instability of American domestic life in the early 1970s, resulting in a work that is volatile, confrontational, and far more thematically layered than its premise initially suggests.

THE PARALLAX VIEW

(1974, USA, Alan J. Pakula)

After a political assassination is initially dismissed as the work of a lone gunman, investigative journalist Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) begins to uncover a pattern of suspicious deaths among the witnesses. His pursuit of the truth leads him to the Parallax Corporation — a shadowy organisation recruiting individuals through psychological profiling for purposes that remain deliberately opaque. As Frady infiltrates their ranks, the film shifts into a labyrinth of surveillance, paranoia, and institutional obfuscation where every revelation tightens the noose rather than clarifies the conspiracy.

A defining entry in the 1970s American paranoia cycle, The Parallax View pairs Pakula’s austere direction with Gordon Willis’s sculptural cinematography to create an atmosphere of systemic dread. The film’s infamous indoctrination montage and its critique of corporate-political entanglement underscore a moment when public trust in institutions had eroded dramatically. The result is a chilling, meticulously controlled thriller in which the machinery of power remains both impersonal and implacable — and the lone investigator never stands a chance.

THE PARALLAX VIEW

(1974, USA, Alan J. Pakula)

THE KILLING OF AMERICA (ON VHS)

(1981, USA/Japan, Leonard Schrader)

Constructed from police footage, news broadcasts, and crime-scene material, this documentary traces a grim arc of escalating violence in the United States from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Without narration in the conventional sense, the film relies on chronology and raw audiovisual evidence to map assassinations, mass shootings, serial murders, and civil unrest. The cumulative effect is less a traditional documentary than a forensic collage of a nation fraying under social, political, and psychological strain.

Produced outside the American documentary mainstream, The Killing of America occupies a stark space between investigative reportage and exploitation cinema. Its unfiltered use of real violence confronts viewers with the mechanisms and consequences of social breakdown, while its structure highlights recurring cycles of fear, alienation, and systemic failure. The film remains an unsettling historical document — not merely for its content, but for the way it frames violence as an endemic feature of modern American life rather than a series of isolated events.

THE RUBBER GUN

(1977, Canada, Allan Moyle)

Set within Montréal’s fragmented underground, the film follows Steve (Stephen Lack), a small-time drug dealer whose circle of friends, users, and hangers-on drifts through a haze of improvisation, petty schemes, and near-constant volatility. When a young, idealistic community worker begins shadowing him for research, Steve’s carefully maintained balance of deals, favours, and fragile alliances starts to slip. Rival crews, shifting loyalties, and the increasing presence of law enforcement push the scene toward implosion, revealing a subculture defined as much by desperation as by camaraderie.

An early entry in Allan Moyle’s exploration of countercultural enclaves, Rubber Gun blends documentary texture with loose narrative construction, using handheld camerawork and improvised performances to capture the immediacy of street-level drug culture. The film’s raw, unvarnished approach emphasises environment and social context over plot mechanics, presenting a portrait of urban marginality at a moment when Canadian independent cinema was briefly aligned with experimental realism and subcultural observation.

LITTLE OTIK + MYSTERY SHORTS

(2000, Czech Republic, Jan Švankmajer)

From the creator of “Alice” and “Faust” comes a most unusual baby…
When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife’s pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard, chops it, and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However, the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real.

A pioneering Czech surrealist filmmaker, known for his unique, tactile stop-motion animation and live-action fusions that blend the mundane with the mystical, Jan Švankmajer presents the modern-day kitchen sink fairy horror tale, which tests the limits of obsessive parenting and failing social contracts. Complemented with several special short films, this night is your ticket to the world of Europe’s greatest weird genius.

A part of the ongoing Euroddity season, introduced by Misha Blahodir.

GARBANZO GAS

(2007, USA, Giuseppe Andrews)

SCOUR CINEMA presents:

When a lucky cow wins an all expense paid weekend at a local hotel, it can’t believe its good fortune. It gets to relax, unwind, and avoid a trip to the slaughterhouse - at least for a few days. Of course, it couldn’t imagine the menagerie of madmen it would run into. Down the hall is a pair of drug addled dimwits who are desperate for something to eat. The cow becomes their main focus. Meanwhile, two different spree killers are wrecking havoc. One murders at the command of some erroneous bath linen. The other listens to a voice inside his shoe, the instructions resulting in even more dead bodies. All the while, our contented animal tries to accommodate everyone’s needs, which typically revolve around a room service meal of meat and potatoes.

Shot in 2 days for $1000, Garbanzo Gas is outwardly hostile towards the suffocating notions of polish and resources, favouring errant inspiration and fearless creativity. Armed with little but a camcorder, costume store props and a game cast of wayward trailer park denizens, Giuseppe Andrews embodies the spirit of truly independent film-making with brashly hilarious and captivating results.

GIUSEPPE MAKES A MOVIE

(2014, USA, Adam Rifkin)

SCOUR CINEMA presents:

Shot over several chaotic production days in a cramped trailer park, this documentary follows underground filmmaker Giuseppe Andrews as he directs Garbanzo Gas with a cast of friends, drifters, sex workers, and elderly motel residents. Working with a camcorder, improvised dialogue, and a shoestring budget, Andrews guides his troupe through scenes that veer between surreal comedy, abrasive confession, and outsider performance art. The film captures both the manic ingenuity of his process and the fragile, unpredictable community orbiting around him.

Rifkin’s documentary positions Andrews as a singular figure in American micro-budget cinema, revealing a methodology that merges sincerity, chaos, and a refusal to conform to any industry norms. Rather than polish or remove the rough edges, Giuseppe Makes a Movie foregrounds them — using behind-the-scenes footage, candid interactions, and abrupt tonal shifts to explore creativity at its most anarchic and unfiltered. The result is both a portrait of a fringe artist and a record of a filmmaking ecosystem that exists entirely outside traditional structures.

THREADS

(1984, UK, Mick Jackson)

Set in Sheffield during escalating geopolitical tensions, the film traces the lives of two working-class families as international brinkmanship gives way to nuclear exchange. In the aftermath, domestic routines collapse into chaos: infrastructure fails, governance disintegrates, and survivors confront starvation, radiation sickness, and the loss of social memory. The narrative’s documentary-styled progression — from pre-strike normality to long-term societal regression — renders the catastrophe with stark procedural detail.

Produced for the BBC and grounded in contemporary civil-defence research, Threads remains one of the most uncompromising depictions of nuclear warfare ever broadcast. Its quasi-verité approach, bleak temporal scope, and emphasis on institutional breakdown transform speculative fiction into a forensic study of vulnerability, capturing both the fragility of modern systems and the human cost of political miscalculation.

GODS OF TIMES SQUARE

(1999, USA, Richard Sandler)

Filmed over the course of the 1990s, Gods of Times Square is a street-level chronicle of New York’s most volatile crossroads during a period of accelerating commercial transformation. Stationed at the corner with a handheld camera, Richard Sandler records preachers, prophets, hustlers, conspiracy evangelists, and self-styled messiahs who command the sidewalks with competing visions of salvation and doom. As redevelopment advances and the neighbourhood’s rough edges are smoothed into tourist-friendly spectacle, the film captures a disappearing ecosystem of unfiltered expression, improvisation, and street-corner theology.

Sandler’s documentary operates as an urban ethnography: observational, patient, and attuned to the rhetorical rhythms of the individuals who populate the frame. Rather than editorialise, the film allows its subjects’ cosmologies — comic, tragic, apocalyptic, and deeply idiosyncratic — to overlap and contradict one another in real time. The result is a portrait of Times Square before its corporate remaking, a cacophonous public forum where belief, performance, and survival were inseparable.

ZACHARIAH

(1971, USA, George Englund)

COSMIK DEBRIS presents

Billed as “the first electric Western,” Zachariah follows two young cowboys — Zachariah (John Rubinstein) and his restless partner Matthew (Don Johnson) — who drift across a surreal frontier in search of adventure, transcendence, and amplified self-expression. Their encounters include gunfights staged like rock concerts, mystical drifters, and outlaw gangs played by real musicians, most notably the James Gang and Country Joe and the Fish. As their paths diverge, Zachariah’s pursuit of enlightenment collides with the violent demands of the frontier myth, pushing him toward a reckoning between pacifism, ego, and spectacle.

A countercultural curio that merges rock-opera energy with genre pastiche, Zachariah filters the Western through psychedelia, improvisation, and early-1970s youth-culture sensibilities. The film’s fractured narrative, musical interludes, and hallucinatory tone create an eccentric, free-form reimagining of frontier mythology — at once parody, homage, and cultural artifact of an era when Hollywood briefly flirted with experimentation well outside the studio mainstream.

DEAD MAN

(1995, USA, Jim Jarmusch)

COSMIK DEBRIS presents:

After travelling west to take a bookkeeping job that no longer exists, William Blake (Johnny Depp) becomes an accidental fugitive when a violent misunderstanding leaves him wounded and on the run. Guided by a mysterious outcast named Nobody (Gary Farmer), who believes Blake to be a reincarnated poet destined for a spiritual journey, he moves through a frontier defined by decay, greed, and hallucinatory violence. As bounty hunters close in, Blake’s passage becomes less an escape than a gradual dissolution of identity, morality, and physical world.

A stark, revisionist anti-western, Dead Man reframes the frontier as a terminal landscape — a space already poisoned by industrial incursion and moral exhaustion. Jarmusch’s minimalist direction, Robby Müller’s high-contrast black-and-white cinematography, and Neil Young’s improvised, electric score create a drifting, elegiac atmosphere. What emerges is a metaphysical western that interrogates American mythologies, charting a journey toward death that feels both intimate and cosmically indifferent.

PINK FLAMINGOS

(1972, USA, John Waters)

Divine, self-proclaimed “filthiest person alive,” lives in a trailer on the outskirts of Baltimore with her family of fellow outsiders, only to find her title challenged by a bourgeois criminal couple who aspire to surpass her notoriety through kidnapping, black-market baby trafficking, and assorted degradations. A petty rivalry escalates into a gaudy feud of escalating provocations, culminating in a showdown that gleefully obliterates the boundaries of taste, decorum, and cinematic propriety.

Often cited as the apex of early trash cinema, Pink Flamingos blends shock tactics, suburban grotesquerie, and deadpan anarchic humour to produce a deliberately abrasive affront to mainstream sensibilities. Waters deploys low-budget aesthetics and transgressive set-pieces not merely for provocation but as a pointed satire of American hypocrisy — a carnival of filth that simultaneously critiques and revels in its own outrageous excess.

DEVIL STORY

(1986, France, Bernard Launois)

On a storm-soaked night in the countryside, a series of violent and inexplicable events ensnares a stranded couple who stumble upon a masked killer, a restless undead horse, and a curse older than the crumbling manor that looms over them. As chaos spreads, the boundaries between superstition and reality collapse, leaving them trapped in a looping nightmare that defies reason.

A delirious mix of pulp horror and surreal chaos, Devil Story embraces its own madness, transforming camp and terror into a fever dream of curses, creatures, and uncanny atmosphere. The film lingers as a gleefully unhinged reminder that not all nightmares follow logic.

MYSTERY MOVIE

AMERICAN MOVIE

(1999, USA, Chris Smith)

Mark Borchardt, an aspiring filmmaker in Wisconsin, struggles to complete his low-budget horror film Coven, juggling financial woes, personal setbacks, and relentless ambition. Friends and family become both collaborators and obstacles as he chases his dream against overwhelming odds.

Funny, inspiring, and at times heartbreaking, American Movie is a documentary about obsession, creativity, and the eccentric determination required to make art, capturing the highs and lows of pursuing a passion with unflinching honesty.

BLONDE DEATH (ON VHS)

(1984, USA, James Robert Baker)

Shot on consumer-grade video and circulating for decades as a near-mythic underground tape, Blonde Death follows the runaway odyssey of Tammy, a teenage misfit fleeing an abusive home with two queer outsiders who christen themselves her new family. Their improvised road trip blends impulsive romance, petty crime, and manic self-invention, gradually collapsing into violence as the trio drifts further from stability. The film’s messy exuberance is threaded with a growing sense of doom, capturing the volatility of youth pushed to the margins.

A seminal artifact of queer DIY cinema, Blonde Death fuses melodrama, punk energy, and camp excess with unexpectedly sharp social commentary. Director James Robert Baker — better known for his incendiary fiction — uses the limitations of shot-on-video production to amplify the film’s immediacy and emotional rawness. The result is a rare, transgressive work whose jagged form reflects the precarity, rebellion, and desperation of its characters, standing at the intersection of outsider art and queer counterculture.

DOA: A RIGHT OF PASSAGE

(1980, , Lech Kowalski)

Filmed across the late 1970s, D.O.A.: A Right of Passage documents the early international eruption of punk with an emphasis on the Sex Pistols’ chaotic and short-lived U.S. tour. Interspersed with candid interviews, club performances, and street-level encounters, the film captures a moment when punk existed as raw impulse rather than codified style: a collision of youthful antagonism, cultural anxiety, and institutional backlash. Alongside the Pistols, Kowalski’s camera turns to other emerging acts — including The Dead Boys and Generation X — as well as the fans and detractors who defined the scene’s volatile public face.

Kowalski’s approach is observational and unvarnished, favouring immediacy over narrative cohesion. The result is a documentary that functions less as a polished historical record than as a sociological snapshot of subcultural energy at breaking point — a portrait of a movement still forming its identity in real time, as commercial forces and moral panic gathered at its edges.

THEY ALL LAUGHED

(1981, USA, Peter Bogdanovich)

John Russo and Charles Rutledge are private eyes drifting through New York City, hired to tail a pair of women whose lives are far more unpredictable than their clients expect. What begins as routine surveillance quickly blurs into something looser and more intimate, as attraction, coincidence, and chance encounters pull everyone off course. As the city hums around them, observation gives way to participation, and the line between watcher and participant quietly dissolves.

A breezy, romantic ode to urban life, They All Laughed captures Peter Bogdanovich’s affection for classic screwball comedy while grounding it in the casual rhythms of modern love. The film thrives on chemistry and spontaneity, letting its performers wander, flirt, and collide with the city itself. Light on plot but rich in mood, They All Laughed finds beauty in impermanence, celebrating the fragile magic of moments that can’t be held onto for long.

WHAT'S UP DOC?

(1972, USA, Peter Bogdanovich)

A series of identical suitcases sets off a spiraling comedy of errors when chance meetings and crossed intentions collide in San Francisco. What begins as a straightforward trip tied to an academic conference quickly descends into confusion, as an unlikely pairing becomes entangled with jewel thieves, suspicious authorities, and a growing trail of misunderstandings that refuse to stay contained.

A brisk and affectionate revival of classic screwball farce, What’s Up, Doc? builds its comedy through escalating complications and relentless momentum. Bogdanovich layers romance and slapstick with precision, allowing chaos to snowball while keeping its emotional center intact. Bright, fast, and gleefully unrestrained, the film turns coincidence into comic art, proving that order was never as fun as losing it.

SAINT JACK

(1979, USA, Peter Bogdanovich)

Adrift in the margins of Singapore’s underworld, an American hustler scrapes by on charm, improvisation, and an unshakable belief in his own luck. Moving between brothels, bars, and backroom deals, he dreams of one big score that will finally deliver independence and control. But as alliances shift and expectations close in, survival becomes a daily negotiation, and freedom proves far more elusive than he imagined.

Loose, atmospheric, and quietly unsettling, Saint Jack captures a world defined by transience and moral ambiguity. Bogdanovich lets the city breathe, using its rhythms to mirror a life built on drift rather than direction. Ben Gazzara gives a deeply lived-in performance, blending swagger with vulnerability to create a portrait of a man clinging to autonomy in a system designed to consume him.

BLONDE DEATH (ON VHS)

(1984, USA, James Robert Baker)

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 y?kai (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 Shirime is watching.

SCHOOL IN THE CROSSHAIRS

(1981, Japan, Nobuhiko Obayashi)

A quiet high school is disrupted when a new student arrives with the ability to exert control over those around him. As his influence spreads, everyday tensions sharpen into something more dangerous, and the balance of power within the school begins to shift. One student resists, slowly realizing that the growing unrest is not accidental but part of a deliberate plan.

Blending youth drama with science fiction and thriller elements, School in the Crosshairs reflects the anxieties simmering beneath adolescent life. Obayashi uses stylization and emotional intensity to turn familiar school spaces into sites of conflict and unease. By filtering questions of authority and conformity through psychic threat, the film captures a world where control is both invisible and inescapable.

THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME

(1983, Japan, Nobuhiko Obayashi)

An ordinary high school day takes an unexpected turn when a teenage girl discovers she has the ability to move through time. At first, the power feels harmless, even playful, allowing her to redo small moments and avoid everyday frustrations. But as she continues to leap backward, the consequences of altering events begin to surface, reshaping her relationships and forcing her to confront the limits of control and choice.

Blending science fiction with a tender coming of age story, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time treats time travel as an emotional rather than mechanical device. Hosoda grounds its fantasy in the rhythms of youth, capturing the uncertainty of growing up and the ache of moments that cannot be repeated. Gentle, reflective, and quietly moving, the film finds poignancy in the realization that time, once spent, can never truly be reclaimed.

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD

(1980, Italy, Lucio Fulci)

Apocalypse cinema as fever dream: damp earth, tolling bells, and the dead pushing up through split soil. Lucio Fulci’s supernatural shocker opens with a priest’s suicide that tears a hole in the fabric of reality, unleashing a slow, airless procession of rot and hysteria in a small American town. Plot is secondary; atmosphere is everything. Fog hangs low, time collapses, and death seeps in through walls, windows, and flesh.

This is gore pushed toward the abstract: drills through skulls, bodies vomiting their own insides, faces frozen in rictus terror. Fulci lingers not for narrative clarity but for sensation — dread stretched to breaking point, violence as texture. Catriona MacColl moves through the carnage with wide-eyed resolve, while Christopher George brings hardboiled disbelief to a world coming apart at the seams.

Part of Fulci’s unofficial “Gates of Hell” cycle, City of the Living Dead plays like a transmission from beyond the grave: irrational, viscous, and utterly committed to its own nightmare logic.

THE BEYOND

(1981, Italy, Lucio Fulci)

Horror as metaphysics, staged in peeling wallpaper and floodwater. Lucio Fulci’s Louisiana-set nightmare begins with a lynching in 1927 and unspools into a vision of modern America built — quite literally — over one of the seven gates of Hell. A crumbling hotel, blind seers, tarantulas in close-up: narrative coherence dissolves into atmosphere, and atmosphere curdles into pure dread.

This is Fulci at his most pitiless. Eyes are punctured, faces are dissolved by acid, bodies are torn open with a clinical, almost perverse patience. Violence arrives not as shock punctuation but as sustained ordeal. Catriona MacColl drifts through corridors and cellars as if sleepwalking toward annihilation, while David Warbeck provides brittle rationality in a universe that has abandoned reason entirely.

Less a story than a descent, The Beyond moves toward one of the bleakest finales in horror cinema: landscapes emptied of life, time suspended, hope extinguished. A film that doesn’t close its gates — it leaves them open.

PUNISHMENT PARK

(1971, United Kingdom, Peter Watkins)

Set in a dystopian vision of Nixon’s America, a group of left-wing radicals are subjected to a sham-trial before being given a choice: jail time, or participate in a sadistic police training exercise, known as ‘Punishment Park’.

A man-hunting-man thriller in the vein of ‘The Most Dangerous Game’, Watkin’s film stands as one of the great works of 70s radicalism. A precursor to the found footage genre, Punishment Park is no less prescient and powerful than it was on its initial release.

Guest Programmed and Introduced by Film Critic Alexander Sternberg

PUNISHMENT PARK

(1971, United Kingdom, Peter Watkins)

EL TOPO

(1970, Mexico, Alejandro Jodorowsky)

Across an arid, hallucinatory desert, a black-clad gunslinger undertakes a brutal spiritual odyssey—duelling mystical masters, confronting his sins, and descending into a world of outcasts who worship him as a messiah.

A feverish collision of western, religious allegory, and psychedelic ritual, El Topo reshapes myth into a violent dreamscape. Jodorowsky’s vision is both sacred and profane—a cosmic fable of enlightenment through blood, sand, and transformation.

HARD BOILED

(1992, Hong Kong, John Woo)

Finally restored after being out of circulation for decades! Hard-drinking Hong Kong inspector known as “Tequila” pursues a gun-running syndicate whose operations run from teahouses and warehouses to the fluorescent corridors of a private hospital. His investigation converges with an undercover officer embedded deep within the criminal network, the two men forced into a fragile alliance as their professional roles and moral boundaries blur. What begins as a familiar cops-and-triads pursuit escalates into sustained, close-quarters combat, with public and supposedly secure spaces transformed into zones of continuous crisis. The film’s momentum lies not in plot revelation but in accumulation — of bodies, shattered interiors, and decisions made under extreme pressure.

Produced at the peak of Hong Kong’s pre-handover action cycle, Hard Boiled channels an industry working at full technical capacity, where elaborate stunt work and practical effects underpin its sense of physical immediacy. The film reframes the heroic codes and male bonding of earlier crime melodramas within modern institutional settings, suggesting a city where systems of order — medical, legal, civic — are already indistinguishable from the violence they contain. Both police thriller and endurance spectacle, it stands as a defining artifact of a moment when local genre cinema translated urban anxiety and industrial virtuosity into a relentless choreography of destruction.

MYSTERY MOVIE

DANCE FREAK + VIDEO INTRO

(2025, USA, Alan Resnick, Robby Rackleff)

On the worst day of his life, an unassuming man crosses paths with a feral, hypnotic stranger who looks exactly like him. The encounter detonates his reality: violence erupts, memories collapse, and he wakes days later implicated in crimes he doesn’t understand. As his identity splinters and the city turns hostile, the question isn’t how to clear his name, but whether he can prove he’s even himself.

Co-directed by Alan Resnick and Robby Rackleff, Dance Freak is a low-budget, high-intensity descent into psychological chaos. Blending abrasive humor, stark black-and-white imagery, and a relentless audiovisual assault, the film channels their shared lineage of unsettling genre work into something lean, volatile, and deliberately unhinged.

EXISTENZ

(1999, Canada, David Cronenberg)

Game design as body horror; virtual reality as wetware infection. David Cronenberg’s late-century provocation drops us into a near-future where entertainment isn’t streamed or projected but surgically plugged into the spine. Organic consoles pulse like exposed organs, bio-ports gape in the lower back, and reality itself flickers under interrogation.

This is conspiracy thriller reduced to viscera: guns grown from bone, fast-food mutations, corporate espionage played out in abattoirs and back rooms. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s celebrity game designer navigates shifting layers of simulation with manic conviction, while Jude Law plays the neophyte dragged — willingly or not — into recursive worlds where authorship, agency, and even identity are up for grabs.

Cronenberg treats technology not as sleek futurism but as penetrative biology. Every interface is sexual, every system unstable. eXistenZ doesn’t ask whether we’re inside a game; it suggests the question is already obsolete.

LA BÊTE

(1975, France, Walerian Borowczyk)

Erotic folklore rendered as aristocratic farce and pastoral hallucination. Walerian Borowczyk’s scandalous period fantasy begins in drawing rooms of inherited wealth and decaying lineage, then slips backward into a fevered 18th-century legend of lust, animality, and transgression. Civilization peels away; appetite remains.

This is costume drama dragged into the mud. Silk gowns and antique furniture give way to rutting in long grass, extended to the point of discomfort and absurdity. Borowczyk stages the encounter between woman and beast as both explicit spectacle and savage satire — a confrontation with repression that’s by turns painterly, grotesque, and deliberately excessive. Sirpa Lane moves from porcelain composure to ecstatic abandon, anchoring a film that refuses good taste as a governing principle.

Banned, cut, and argued over on release, La Bête stands as one of European art-cinema’s most brazen provocations: a heritage romance infected by animal desire, played straight and pushed too far.

BLUE VELVET

(1986, USA, David Lynch)

A quiet small town is shattered when a young man discovers a severed ear in a field, plunging him into a hidden world of violence, sexual obsession, and moral corruption. Drawn into the orbit of a nightclub singer and a dangerously unhinged criminal, he becomes entangled in a dark mystery where innocence and depravity collide. Every revelation pulls him deeper into a labyrinth of fear, desire, and menace.

David Lynch’s Blue Velvet juxtaposes the idyllic surface of suburbia with the grotesque underworld lurking beneath. The film is tense, surreal, and intensely atmospheric, blending noirish intrigue with psychological horror. Strange, hypnotic, and haunting, it exposes the darkness lurking behind everyday appearances and examines the uneasy coexistence of innocence and evil.

DEF BY TEMPTATION

(1990, USA, James Bond III)

A young minister visiting New York City is drawn into a hidden world of desire and danger when he encounters a mysterious woman whose beauty conceals a deadly secret. As temptation pulls him further from his faith and upbringing, a string of brutal murders begins to reveal a supernatural force feeding on lust and vulnerability. Caught between devotion and desire, he must confront the consequences of giving in to what he was taught to resist.

Blending urban horror with morality play, Def by Temptation channels the atmosphere of late night city streets and religious unease. James Bond III frames seduction as both allure and threat, using genre thrills to explore guilt, repression, and spiritual conflict. Stylish, provocative, and rooted in cautionary tradition, the film turns temptation into a literal battle for the soul.

BILLY THE KID AND THE GREEN BAIZE VAMPIRE

(1985, United Kingdom, Alan Clarke)

In a small English town, a talented young snooker player faces a chilling challenge when he encounters a mysterious rival with a sinister secret. As high-stakes matches pile up, the line between sport and supernatural menace blurs, and every victory carries a growing sense of danger. The competition becomes more than a game, turning personal ambition into a fight for survival.

A quirky fusion of horror, comedy, and sports drama, Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire revels in its own eccentricity. Alan Clarke mixes dark humor with gothic flair, turning snooker halls into arenas of tension and spectacle. Offbeat, entertaining, and unpredictably imaginative, the film transforms a simple contest into a story of rivalry, temptation, and the weird thrill of facing the unknown.

HARD BOILED

(1992, Hong Kong, John Woo)

THE STABILIZER

(1986, Indonesia, Arizal)

After the murder of his fiancée by flamboyant drug smuggler Greg Rainmaker, whose spiked shoes double as weapons, Peter Goldson sheds his former life and becomes “The Stabilizer,” a vigilante devoted to restoring balance to a city sliding into criminal excess. When Rainmaker kidnaps the eminent Professor Protost, Goldson forms an uneasy alliance with the professor’s daughter, Christina, navigating docklands and industrial corridors in pursuit of both rescue and revenge.

An artifact of exploitation-inflected action cinema, The Stabilizer frames personal vendetta against a backdrop of narcotics trafficking and scientific intrigue. Its stark urban settings and blunt confrontations sketch a moral universe where order is reclaimed through force, even as the film hints that the line between justice and obsession may be perilously thin.

FATAL PULSE + SECRET MUSICAL COMEDY PERFORMANCE!

(2018, USA, Damon Packard)

In a surreal, nostalgia‑tinted version of the early 1990s, corporate moguls and dreamers find themselves trapped in a labyrinth of paranoia, ambition, and betrayal. A powerful executive, stranded in his own home with his unpredictable brother‑in‑law, becomes the axis of a strange game where everyone around him is scheming, deceiving, or plotting murder in a world that feels half thriller, half hallucination. As alliances fracture and reality blurs, the pursuit of power turns inward, revealing how tenuous sanity and survival truly are.

Damon Packard’s Fatal Pulse reimagines genre conventions into a fever dream of corporate anxiety and neo‑noir excess. The film’s world is drenched in the glow of late‑century media and paranoia, where every shadow hides a threat and every character teeters on the brink of madness. Strange, disorienting, and defiantly unconventional, it dissolves narrative expectations into an atmospheric rumination on ambition, identity, and the pulse of an era in decline.

PLUS A SECRET 1HR MUSICAL COMEDY PERFORMANCE FROM A SPECIAL MYSTERY GUEST...

SWITCHBLADE SISTERS

(1975, USA, Jack Hill)

A tight-knit gang of high school girls rules their city streets with style, swagger, and ruthless ambition. When rival factions, betrayal, and law enforcement threaten their control, friendships fracture and violence escalates, turning the girls’ world into a perilous battleground where loyalty and survival are constantly tested.

Switchblade Sisters is a high-energy exploitation thriller that blends teen rebellion, street warfare, and sensationalized action. Directed by Jack Hill, the film emphasizes dynamic female characters who are as cunning and formidable as any male counterpart in crime cinema. Sharp, edgy, and unapologetically audacious, it celebrates chaos, camaraderie, and the thrill of living dangerously on the fringes of society.

COFFY

(1973, USA, Jack Hill)

A streetwise nurse takes the law into her own hands when the men who control her neighborhood through drugs, exploitation, and violence push too far. Using her wits, charm, and lethal skill, she sets out to dismantle a criminal empire piece by piece, targeting those who exploit the vulnerable while navigating a city that is as dangerous as it is corrupt.

Blaxploitation at its most uncompromising, Coffy combines relentless action with social awareness and fiery moral purpose. Jack Hill’s direction balances stylish violence, suspense, and sharp character work, while Pam Grier delivers an iconic performance that radiates strength, intelligence, and righteous anger. Fierce, provocative, and unforgettable, the film turns vengeance into empowerment and establishes a hero who refuses to be ignored.

BLOODY MUSCLE BODY BUILDER IN HELL

(1995, Japan, Shinichi Fukazawa)

Set in a dingy Tokyo apartment, a self-absorbed bodybuilder sets out to film a showcase of his sculpted physique with the help of his ex-girlfriend and a cameraman, only to discover that the room is haunted by a furious spirit determined to drag them into chaos.

A frenzied splatter comedy forged in pure DIY ambition, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell channels the scrappy inventiveness of cult cabin-in-the-woods horror while leaning hard into slapstick absurdity. Shot on gritty video and exploding with handmade practical effects, it transforms one claustrophobic location into a whirlwind of possession, rubbery monstrosities, and delirious blood soaked spectacle.

HUSBANDS

(1970, USA, John Cassavetes)

A group of lifelong friends confronts the limits of loyalty, love, and ambition after the sudden death of one of their own. As they navigate grief, relationships, and personal failures, tensions simmer beneath the surface, revealing the fragility of bonds once thought unbreakable. Each man must face the choices that have shaped his life and the consequences of neglect, jealousy, and unfulfilled desire.

John Cassavetes’ Husbands is a raw, intimate study of male friendship and midlife crisis. Shot with emotional immediacy and naturalistic intensity, the film captures the aimlessness, bravado, and vulnerability of men struggling to find meaning in the wake of loss. Brutal, heartfelt, and unflinchingly honest, it portrays a journey through grief, indulgence, and self-discovery that is as uncomfortable as it is profoundly human.

WHO CAN KILL A CHILD?

(1976, Spain, Chicho Ibáñez Serrador)

A vacationing couple arrives on a remote Mediterranean island only to find it eerily deserted, save for the children who roam it freely. As strange incidents escalate into open violence, the horrifying truth emerges: the children have turned against the adults. Trapped and increasingly desperate, the couple must confront an impossible moral dilemma where innocence and threat are fatally intertwined.

Bleak, confrontational, and deeply unsettling, Who Can Kill a Child? strips horror down to its most disturbing premise. Serrador stages terror in broad daylight, using sunlit landscapes to heighten the sense of dread rather than conceal it. The film’s power lies not in spectacle but in its ethical provocation, forcing viewers to grapple with fear, guilt, and the collapse of moral certainty when the unthinkable becomes unavoidable.

MYSTERY MOVIE

VAMPYROS LESBOS

(1971, West Germany/Spain, Jesús Franco)

In the sun-drenched interzones between Istanbul and the Spanish coast, a young woman becomes entangled with a hypnotic vampire whose erotic pull dissolves the boundaries between dream, desire, and death. Vampyros Lesbos abandons conventional horror mechanics in favour of atmosphere and repetition, drifting through nocturnal clubs, modernist interiors, and bloodless acts of seduction that feel more ritualistic than violent. Franco treats vampirism less as a curse than as a state of erotic dislocation—an endless present where pleasure overrides causality and identity slips out of focus.

Anchored by Soledad Miranda’s uncanny screen presence and propelled by a hallucinatory jazz-funk score, the film occupies a singular space between exploitation cinema and avant-garde mood piece. Its languid pacing and fetishistic surfaces mask a deeper emptiness at the core, where liberation and annihilation become indistinguishable, and desire circulates without resolution.

+ Introduction by Filmmaker & Programmer, Craig Williams

GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS

(1973, USA, Fredric Hobbs)

A small desert town is thrown into panic when a mysterious, mutated creature emerges from the surrounding wilderness. Half-human, half-beast, and entirely terrifying, the “Godmonster” wreaks havoc as locals struggle to understand what they are facing, torn between fear, fascination, and the desire to exploit the creature for profit and notoriety.

Blending science fiction, horror, and darkly satirical social commentary, Godmonster of Indian Flats turns a low-budget monster tale into an offbeat meditation on greed, superstition, and human folly. The film thrives on its surreal atmosphere and bizarre charm, creating a world where terror and absurdity coexist. Strange, unsettling, and oddly poignant, it transforms a desert nightmare into a critique of small-town paranoia and exploitation.

BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL (ON VHS)

(1984, USA, Chester Novell Turner)

A lonely and pious woman finds herself drawn to a mysterious antique doll whose malevolent influence quickly escalates from unsettling pranks to violent, supernatural terror. As the doll’s control tightens, her life spirals into chaos, and those around her fall victim to its relentless, demonic will.

A shot on video masterpiece from former church organist, Chester N. Turner, Black Devil Doll from Hell revels in low-budget excess and devilish theatrics. The film leans into grotesque violence, uncanny puppetry, and unrepentant exploitation, creating a nightmarish energy that is as absurd as it is frightening.

TRASH HUMPERS

(2009, USA, Harmony Korine)

Follow a small group of elderly “Peeping Toms” through the shadows and margins of an unfamiliar world. Crudely documented by the participants themselves, we follow the debased and shocking actions of a group of true sociopaths the likes of which have never been seen before. Inhabiting a world of broken dreams and beyond the limits of morality, they crash against a torn and frayed America.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

(1978, Czechoslovakia, Juraj Herz)

A humble village girl becomes the captive of a grotesque Beast, a figure both terrifying and tragic. As she navigates his eerie, shadow-filled castle, fear gives way to curiosity and compassion, revealing the humanity hidden beneath his monstrous exterior.

A darkly gothic and visually striking fairy tale, Juraj Herz’s Beauty and the Beast blends horror and romance, exploring obsession, transformation, and the thin line between terror and tenderness.

THE LAUGHING WOMAN

(1969, Italy, Piero Schivazappa)

A young woman becomes the target of a wealthy man’s obsession, as he orchestrates a twisted psychological game that pushes her into fear, humiliation, and terror. Trapped in a labyrinth of manipulation, she must navigate a world where power, desire, and cruelty intersect, and where her survival depends on wit as much as courage.

The Laughing Woman is a provocative and unsettling exploration of domination and psychological horror. Piero Schivazappa uses striking visuals, claustrophobic interiors, and eerie sound design to heighten tension and unease. Sensual, stylish, and disturbing, the film probes the darker aspects of desire and control, crafting a haunting portrait of vulnerability and the perverse games of the powerful.

DEAD MOUNTAINEER'S HOTEL

(1979, Estonia, Grigori Kromanov)

A remote alpine hotel becomes the stage for mystery and paranoia when a train-bound detective arrives to investigate a suspicious death. As he encounters the eccentric guests and strange staff, it becomes increasingly clear that not everything is as it seems and some of the occupants may not even be human. Secrets, deception, and hidden agendas collide, turning the isolated hotel into a claustrophobic labyrinth of suspicion and intrigue.

Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel, adapted from a novel by the Strugatsky Brothers, blends science fiction, mystery, and darkly absurd humor with eerie, atmospheric tension. Grigori Kromanov crafts a world where logic and reality are constantly in question, using the isolated setting to heighten unease and uncertainty. Strange, enigmatic, and richly stylized, the film is a meditation on identity, secrecy, and the uneasy boundaries between the human and the otherworldly.

EURODITTY PRESENTS: LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH

(1969, West Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)

Set in the underworld of Munich, a small time pimp finds his fragile routine disrupted when a cool headed gangster arrives from Vienna with an offer he cannot refuse. Loyalties shift and desire festers as the trio drift through cafés, hotel rooms, and backroom deals, bound together by money, jealousy, and the threat of sudden violence.

A stark debut that strips the crime film to its bare bones, Love Is Colder Than Death announces the arrival of Rainer Werner Fassbinder with icy minimalism. Deadpan performances, rigid framing, and bursts of brutal absurdity turn familiar gangster tropes into something alien and confrontational, laying the foundation for one of the most uncompromising careers in modern cinema.

SECT SILENT CLUB PRESENTS: HELLBOUND TRAIN + MYSTERY SHORTS WITH LIVE SCORE

(1930, USA, James Gist, Eloyce Gist)

Set aboard a runaway locomotive hurtling toward damnation, a cross section of wayward souls board a train whose lavish cars promise pleasure, greed, and excess, unaware that the final stop leads straight to eternal judgment. As temptations mount and warnings go unheeded, the journey becomes a stark allegory of sin and salvation.

A rare artifact of early Black independent cinema, Hellbound Train was created by filmmakers James Gist and Eloyce Gist as a fiery work of religious instruction. Blending sermon, pageant, and silent era spectacle, the film transforms moral warning into vivid visual metaphor, delivering a fervent vision of vice, repentance, and the perilous cost of missing the right train.

FEATURING LIVE SCORE FROM MUTTERICHBINDOOM

SECT SILENT CLUB PRESENTS: HELLBOUND TRAIN + MYSTERY SHORTS WITH LIVE SCORE

(1930, USA, James Gist, Eloyce Gist)

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE

(1974, USA, Joseph Sargent)

A routine subway ride in New York City turns into a high-stakes hostage crisis when a group of armed hijackers seizes a train full of passengers. With time running out and the city watching, a transit dispatcher becomes the unlikely point of negotiation, racing against both the criminals and the clock to prevent disaster. Every decision carries the weight of lives, and every second brings the tension closer to a breaking point.

A taut, urban thriller, The Taking of Pelham 123 combines meticulous plotting with relentless suspense. Director Joseph Sargent transforms the city’s underground into a claustrophobic arena of danger and strategy. Smart, fast-paced, and nerve-jangling, the film is a masterclass in tension, showing how ordinary people confront extraordinary peril with courage, cunning, and resolve.

CHARLEY VARRICK

(1975, USA, Don Siegel)

A professional getaway driver finds himself caught in a dangerous game when a planned bank robbery goes off without a hitch but spirals into unexpected complications. Hunted by the law and pursued by criminal associates, he must rely on skill, cunning, and nerves of steel to stay ahead. Every decision carries risk, and freedom feels just out of reach as the tension ratchets higher.

Charley Varrick is a taut, meticulously crafted crime thriller that balances action with sharp character work. Don Siegel directs with precision, using suspense, clever plotting, and smart dialogue to immerse viewers in the high-stakes world of small-time crime turned deadly serious. Cool, suspenseful, and relentlessly engaging, the film examines the cost of ambition and the fragile balance between luck and skill in a life lived on the edge.

REPO MAN

(1984, USA, Alex Cox)

PUNK AT 50 PRESENTS

A disaffected young punk drifts into the strange, chaotic world of car repossession in Los Angeles, discovering that the job is far stranger than he imagined. As he chases delinquent vehicles, he encounters anarchic subcultures, shadowy government agents, and a mysterious car with dangerous, possibly extraterrestrial cargo. Every odd encounter pushes him further into a surreal landscape where reality and absurdity collide.

Repo Man is a darkly comic, offbeat cult classic that blends science fiction, punk energy, and social satire. Alex Cox’s direction revels in the absurdities of consumer culture, bureaucracy, and youth rebellion, capturing a city both alien and familiar. Chaotic, irreverent, and wildly imaginative, the film is a collision of genre, attitude, and off-kilter humor that continues to resonate with its anarchic vision of modern life.

SUPERMARKT

(1974, West Germany, Roland Klick)

An aimless eighteen year old scrapes by on the streets of Hamburg as a petty criminal and drifter, stealing small amounts to survive and trying to find a place in a world that seems stacked against him. Encounters with a well meaning journalist who wants to help and a sleazy small time crook who pushes him toward worse choices pull him deeper into trouble. When he falls for a young woman living on the edge, he dreams of a way out, but his desperation and past choices drive him toward a desperate plan involving an armed robbery at a supermarket. As the crime unravels and the net closes in, survival becomes his only goal.

Roland Klick’s film combines grim social realism with action oriented storytelling to paint a raw portrait of life on society’s margins. The camera follows its restless protagonist through the gritty port city and its underbelly, capturing the ruthless energy of a generation that feels misunderstood and abandoned. Supermarkt is both a crime drama and a study of frustration, hope, and the hard choices faced by those with no clear path forward.

NAKED KILLER

(1992, Hong Kong, Clarence Fok)

"An erotic Hong Kong action thriller featuring female assassins who shoot men in the dick." - Cathode Cinema

After a violent confrontation draws police attention, a streetwise young woman is pulled into an underground cadre of elite contract killers. Under the tutelage of a seasoned mentor, she is moulded into a precise and seductive operative, but her trajectory becomes complicated by a principled detective and a ruthless rival trained in a parallel system of coercion and manipulation. Their intersecting paths move inexorably toward a showdown shaped by desire, rivalry, and institutionalised violence.

Emerging from the early-1990s Hong Kong Category III wave, Naked Killer synthesises neon-saturated noir, stylised gunplay, and melodramatic excess. Its fusion of eroticism and hyperbolic action mirrors a period of industrial experimentation, where genre filmmaking pushed boundaries of taste, censorship, and spectacle.

SCREENED WITH DUBBED ENGLISH AUDIO

THE KILLER

(1989, Hong Kong, John Woo)

In a contract hit gone wrong, a seasoned assassin named Ah Jong accidentally blinds a nightclub singer during a routine job. Haunted by guilt and compelled by his own code of conduct, he takes on “one last job” not for pride but to secure the funds for her restorative surgery, even as rival factions close in on his trail. Meanwhile, an unorthodox and determined police detective follows Ah Jong through Hong Kong’s crowded clubs, neon thoroughfares, and rain-slicked back streets, forging an uneasy connection between hunter and hunted that blurs conventional roles of law and criminality. The narrative unfolds not as a classic whodunit but as a sequence of escalating moral crises and carefully choreographed confrontations, where each act of gunplay is both a tactical necessity and a moment of emotional reckoning.

Situated within the heroic bloodshed tradition of late-1980s Hong Kong cinema, The Killer pairs intense balletic violence with reflective themes of honour, friendship, and jeopardised empathy. Ah Jong’s bond with the singer and the shifting rapport with his pursuer underscore Woo’s interest in personal codes of loyalty that operate outside institutional frameworks. Drawn from influences as diverse as French crime films and American urban dramas, the film uses slow-motion gun battles and punctuated silences to map inner conflict onto the city’s material spaces, creating an action melodrama that balances spectacle with melancholy. Its enduring international reputation reflects both its stylistic precision and its resonance as a work that complicates the archetype of the professional killer, positioning The Killer as a defining example of its genre and era.

MYSTERY MOVIE

SCARLET WARNING 666

(1974, USA, Palmer Rockey)

VIY

(1967, Soviet Union, Georgi Kropachyov, Konstantin Ershov)

A young seminary student is sent to a remote village to perform last rites for a deceased woman rumored to be a witch. As night falls, he confronts terrifying supernatural forces, including the eponymous Viy, a monstrous entity whose gaze can kill. Trapped in the haunted church and surrounded by the restless dead, he must summon courage and faith to survive the relentless horrors closing in.

Viy is a chilling adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s story, blending gothic horror with folk superstition and atmospheric tension. Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov use shadow, candlelight, and elaborate practical effects to create a world of dread and wonder. Dark, imaginative, and unnervingly vivid, the film immerses viewers in a landscape where superstition and terror collide, making fear both palpable and inescapable.

MYSTERY MOVIE

BLUE VELVET

(1986, USA, David Lynch)

OUT OF THE BLUE

(1980, USA, Dennis Hopper)

A rebellious teenage girl grows up in a fractured family in the Pacific Northwest, trying to find her place in a world that feels hostile and unforgiving. Her father is an alcoholic ex‑truck driver serving time for a deadly accident, and her mother drifts through addiction and unstable relationships while the girl clings to music icons and the punk scene as a form of escape. When her father is released from prison, the fragile balance in the household collapses and buried traumas come to the surface, driving her toward a devastating and irrevocable choice.

Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue is a raw, unflinching drama that captures the angst and alienation of youth in a world without direction. With a powerful central performance, the film confronts dysfunction, desire for belonging, and the corrosive effects of violence and neglect. Intense, harrowing, and emotionally stark, it offers a bleak but unforgettable portrait of a young life pushed to the edge.

THE LAST MOVIE

(1971, USA, Dennis Hopper)

After a Hollywood crew finishes shooting a Western in a remote Peruvian village, the stunt coordinator known as Kansas chooses to stay behind rather than return to the United States. As the villagers begin to reenact the filmmaking process with makeshift props and ritualistic fervour, the boundary between staged fiction and real life collapses. Kansas becomes both participant and observer in their improvised performances and must navigate the strange cultural transformation unfolding around him.

Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie reflects on the power of cinema, the clash between different cultural worlds, and the way spectacle can take on mythic meaning when unmoored from its original context. The narrative blends surreal, non‑linear storytelling with documentary‑like observation, creating an experimental film that challenges traditional narrative form and foregrounds the collision of art and reality.

MY NAME IS MONDAY: A NIGHT OF SOVIET FILM, MUSIC & ANIMATION

Меня зовут понедельник
A night of Soviet film, music and animation.

“All evidence suggests that the history of mankind has ended. It is time to sum up the outcome, and I think it should be done calmly, without vulgar affectation"

My name is Monday and I am the spy who came in from the cold.
I am useless bureaucracy, flammable fashion and a ruse for criminal justice.
I welcome myself without knocking.
You will find me on the cutting room floor of animation laboratories, the kolkhoz, cults and behind the door of your office. I am in battleships, bunkers, and places in space.
I am Soviet and Cold War film from 1917 to 1991,
My name is Monday and expect me at 8.
Ku.

MY NAME IS MONDAY: A NIGHT OF SOVIET FILM, MUSIC & ANIMATION

REPO MAN

(1984, USA, Alex Cox)

KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE + THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY

(1950, USA, Gordon Douglas)

Set in the shadowy back alleys of a nameless American city, an escaped convict claws his way to the top of the rackets through blackmail, betrayal, and calculated brutality, leaving a trail of corpses and double crossed partners in his wake.

A vicious noir powered by the feral charisma of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and its star James Cagney, the film revels in moral rot and tabloid savagery.

Paired with the pioneering gangster short The Musketeers of Pig Alley from D. W. Griffith, it forms a grim double bill tracing the evolution of screen crime from silent era street skirmishes to postwar cynicism soaked in greed and gunfire.

NAVAJEROS

(1980, Spain, Eloy de la Iglesia)

PUNK AT 50 PRESENTS

A fifteen year old with a long record of petty crime leads a gang of friends through the streets and slums of Madrid, surviving by stealing, car theft and armed robbery in a world marked by unemployment and social neglect. Without a stable home, he takes refuge with an older prostitute who offers him shelter and care, but his restless energy draws him deeper into violence and chaotic relationships. When he falls for a young woman struggling with addiction and faces betrayal and tragedy among his circle, his life spins toward destruction and ultimately fatal consequences.

Navajeros is a gritty crime drama rooted in the real life of a notorious Spanish delinquent, and it became a defining entry in the quinqui film genre that captured youth marginalization in Spain. Eloy de la Iglesia’s direction depicts the raw realities of street life, crime, love and desperation with unflinching intensity, presenting a world where survival is both aimless and urgent.

RON ORMOND DOUBLE BILL: THE BURNING HELL & IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO?

Two cautionary visions of sin, judgment, and moral alarm collide in Ron Ormond’s uncompromising double feature. In The Burning Hell, viewers descend into a fiery, vividly staged afterlife where sinners endure grotesque punishments for earthly transgressions, a literalized warning of eternal consequence. If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? shifts to a present-day allegory, depicting a suburban community subjected to totalitarian indoctrination and moral collapse, dramatizing the dangers of complacency in the face of corruption. Together, the films confront fear, faith, and obedience in uncompromisingly theatrical terms.

Ormond’s work is blunt, hyper-stylized, and relentlessly moralistic, blending evangelical zeal with lurid spectacle. Both films use exaggeration, allegory, and shock to seize attention and provoke reflection, offering an immersive experience that is as unsettling as it is unforgettable.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER MAN

(1966, USA, Doris Wishman)

COSMIK DEBRIS PRESENTS

Set in a sleek, upscale apartment, Steve and Ann Bundy appear to have it all after a sudden raise boosts their lifestyle. But when Steve falls mysteriously ill and becomes bedridden, mounting bills and lost income push Ann toward desperation. A chance encounter with a unscrupulous pimp offers a shortcut to fast money, forcing her into a morally perilous world.

A tense, gritty slice of urban melodrama, Another Day, Another Man explores the intersection of ambition, illness, and survival. Shot with the raw, unpolished style that defines Wishman’s work, it transforms everyday desperation into a quietly unsettling portrait of temptation, compromise, and the hidden costs of desire.

BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL

(1965, USA, Doris Wishman)

COSMIK DEBRIS PRESENTS

Set on the run after killing her rapist, homemaker Ellen flees to the bustling streets of the Big City, only to be met with a series of new misfortunes. Just as she begins to find a fragile sense of stability, she discovers that her landlady’s son is a detective, threatening to unravel the identity and peace she has fought so hard to reclaim.

A lurid, hallucinatory journey through guilt, survival, and desire, Bad Girls Go to Hell showcases the bold vision of Doris Wishman. With feverish editing, inventive angles, and eroticized chaos, the film transforms a simple flight from violence into a surreal, provocative exploration of morality, vengeance, and female

WHAT'S UP DOC?

(1972, USA, Peter Bogdanovich)

OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN

(1983, USA, George P. Cosmatos)

Set in a quiet Manhattan apartment, a work-obsessed scientist discovers that a relentless intruder is sabotaging his life. As the menace escalates, he realizes the culprit is a single, cunning rat, and his struggle to eliminate it spirals into an obsessive, life-or-death battle.

A taut, psychological thriller in the tradition of urban paranoia, Of Unknown Origin transforms a single apartment into a claustrophobic arena of fear and obsession. With escalating suspense and meticulous attention to detail, the film turns a simple infestation into a gripping study of human fragility, obsession, and the thin line between sanity and terror.

SLUGS

(1988, Spain, Juan Piquer Simón)

Set in a small, isolated town, a mysterious outbreak turns ordinary garden slugs into vicious, carnivorous killers. As residents begin to vanish and panic spreads, a local scientist races to uncover the cause and stop the growing menace before the town is overrun.

A gruesome exercise in eco-horror, Slugs combines relentless creature attacks with grimy, small-town atmosphere. Packed with practical effects and escalating gore, the film transforms a seemingly harmless pest into a relentless force of terror, delivering a disturbingly visceral vision of nature turned lethal.

THE KILLER

(1989, Hong Kong, John Woo)

AT MIDNIGHT I'LL TAKE YOUR SOUL

(1964, Brazil, José Mojica Marins)

A defiant undertaker obsessed with the idea of immortality through his bloodline searches for the perfect woman who can bear him a son, a quest that draws him into increasingly brutal crimes in a small Brazilian village. When his own wife is infertile, he kills her and then pursues the fiancée of his friend, dismissing warnings of supernatural retribution even as his violence escalates. After a string of murders and assaults that go unpunished, a local fortune teller foretells that the spirits of his victims will take his soul at midnight. As the cursed night arrives, eerie apparitions and creeping dread force him to confront the consequences of his relentless cruelty.

José Mojica Marins’ At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul introduced his infamous Coffin Joe character and stands as a foundational work of Brazilian horror cinema, notable for its raw violence, stark moral conflict, and haunting final reel where folklore and vengeance converge.

MYSTERY MOVIE

HUSBANDS

(1970, USA, John Cassavetes)

DIAL: HELP

(1988, Italy, Ruggero Deodato)

Set in a shadowed urban apartment, a young woman becomes the target of a mysterious killer who stalks his victims through the telephone. As each threatening call escalates, she must navigate paranoia, isolation, and mounting terror to survive the deadly game.

A tense, low-budget thriller, Dial: Help exemplifies the ingenuity of independent suspense cinema. With claustrophobic framing, eerie sound design, and relentless psychological tension, the film transforms everyday technology into a conduit of fear, turning a simple apartment and a phone line into a trap from which escape seems impossible.

THE WASHING MACHINE

(1993, Italy, Ruggero Deodato)

A young inspector arrives at the home of three sisters to investigate one of their disappearances. One of the girls claims to have seen her sisters body in the washing machine. But when the inspector checks its gone! Was it a horrifying vision or something more sinister?? As the inspector uncovers the mystery he becomes tangled in the sisters twisted sex games. A delightfully bizarre and incredibly sleazy giallo - filled with mystery, violence and one of a kind Italian charm.

BUSTING

(1974, USA, Peter Hyams)

Set in the gritty streets of New York City, a pair of rookie cops navigate a world of drugs, corruption, and violent crime. As they chase down dangerous criminals, their idealism is tested, and the line between justice and vengeance begins to blur.

A raw and uncompromising entry in 1970s urban crime cinema, Busting combines action, moral tension, and street-level realism. With intense performances and kinetic direction, the film transforms familiar cop tropes into a gripping exploration of law enforcement, ambition, and the personal costs of chasing criminals through a city that seems as hostile as the crime itself.

COPLAND

(1997, USA, James Mangold)

Set in a small New Jersey town dominated by powerful law enforcement figures, a quiet sheriff observes corruption, abuse of power, and hidden violence among his peers. As tensions mount, he must decide whether to stay silent or confront the dark truths festering in his community.

A moody, character-driven crime drama, Copland blends noir sensibilities with social commentary. Anchored by strong performances and deliberate pacing, the film transforms a seemingly sleepy town into a tense moral battleground, exploring loyalty, conscience, and the personal cost of standing up to systemic corruption.

DISEMBODIED

(1998, USA, William Kersten)

Set in a grimly surreal world, Connie Sproutz is a charming young woman burdened with a grotesque affliction: a spore-generating deformity on her face that turns anyone who comes too close into a gelatinous mass, consumed by the neural parasite dwelling in her skull. Her brain, stored safely in a jar beside her bed, leaves her both vulnerable and monstrously dangerous in everyday life.

A bizarre fusion of body horror and dark comedy, Disembodied transforms the human form into a playground of grotesque imagination. With practical effects and surreal visual storytelling, the film turns a single, tragic character into a nightmarish spectacle, exploring isolation, contagion, and the absurd terror of being both monster and victim in a hostile world.

BRAIN DAMAGE

(1988, USA, Frank Henenlotter)

Set in the shadowy underbelly of New York City, a young man named Brian becomes host to a parasitic creature named Aylmer, which injects a euphoric, mind-altering fluid directly into his brain. As the addiction takes hold, Brian finds himself caught between pleasure and destruction, forced to commit increasingly violent acts to feed the creature’s insatiable hunger.

A grotesque and hallucinatory tour de force, Brain Damage exemplifies Frank Henenlotter’s signature blend of body horror, dark comedy, and urban decay. With surreal practical effects, pulsating gore, and a warped sense of humor, the film transforms the human body into a battleground of parasitic control, addiction, and the intoxicating allure of self-destruction.