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The Nickel

@thenickelcinema

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London’s Grindhouse Cinema, Video Shop + Bar
117-119 Clerkenwell Road, EC1R5BY

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This July at THE NICKEL!

From the arthouse to the grindhouse, experience cult film delirium at our intimate 37-seat theatre, basement bar and shop.

Expect cosmic cats, travelling freakshows, doomsday prophets, obscene telephone calls, Ugandan action-movie-stars, punk outcasts, time loops, mutant space beasts, guerilla cine-warriors, vice cops, acid cowboys, street hustlers, urban cavemen, dominatrixes, alien overlords and psychosurrealist simping.

We also have special events such as live in-person Q&A with filmmakers, guest programmers, mystery screenings and UK firsts.

DEATH TO MEDIOCRE CINEMA!

Only 37 seats - book now to avoid disappointment!

THENICKEL.co.uk by @thenickelcinema

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23

a month ago

DEATH TO MEDIOCRE CINEMA!

This July at The Nickel... a month of underseen psychotronic cinema for adult audiences.

Only 37 seats.

Book your seat at London's freakiest grindhouse.

THENICKEL.co.uk

Editor @born2louche by @thenickelcinema

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22 days ago

MELODY
(1971, UK, Waris Hussein)

Daniel, a shy London schoolboy, becomes infatuated with Melody, a classmate whose independence and self-confidence set her apart from those around her. Their relationship develops with an intensity that the adults in their lives struggle to understand, leading the pair to reject conventional expectations about childhood and romance. As friends, teachers, and parents attempt to intervene, Daniel and Melody become increasingly determined to define their relationship on their own terms.

Adapted from a story by Alan Parker and featuring music by the Bee Gees, Melody occupies a distinctive place in British cinema of the early 1970s. Combining elements of coming-of-age drama, social realism, and youthful fantasy, the film presents childhood not as a preparation for adulthood but as a world with its own emotional logic and seriousness. Shot in and around London at a moment of significant social change, it captures a vision of working- and lower-middle-class Britain while exploring themes of innocence, rebellion, and the tension between youthful idealism and adult authority. Though only a modest success in the UK on its initial release, it became enormously popular in several international territories and has since acquired a lasting cult following.

Certificate: PG
Saturday 25/7
Bar 3:30pm
Film 4:00pm

Book at THENICKEL.co.uk by @thenickelcinema

39

1

20 hours ago

Martin Scorsese's favourite movie of 1982.

It's VICE SQUAD.

Set over the course of a single night in Hollywood, Vice Squad follows Princess, a sex worker pressured by police into helping capture Ramrod, a violently unpredictable pimp who has escaped custody and is seeking revenge. As Ramrod moves through the city's motels, strip clubs, alleyways, and neon-lit boulevards, Princess finds herself trapped between the demands of law enforcement and the threat of brutal retaliation. The pursuit unfolds across a nocturnal Los Angeles where exploitation, survival, and violence are woven into everyday life.

Produced during a period when Hollywood was increasingly serving as a setting for urban thrillers and exploitation films, Vice Squad combines elements of the police procedural, serial-killer thriller, and street-level melodrama. Director Gary Sherman grounds the film in locations rarely seen in mainstream American cinema, presenting the city's sex industry with an unusual degree of immediacy and detail. Anchored by Wings Hauser's notorious performance as Ramrod, the film has endured as one of the defining examples of early-1980s exploitation cinema, capturing a vision of Los Angeles far removed from its glamorous screen image.

Certificate: 18
Saturday 25/07
Bar 6:00pm
Film 6:30pm

Tickets at THENICKEL.co.uk by @thenickelcinema

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4

a day ago

PUNK AT 50 continues next Monday 27th July at The Nickel, with a double bill of RODRIGO D: NO FUTURO (1990) and JUBILEE (1978)

RODRIGO D: NO FUTURO
(1990, Colombia, Víctor Gaviria)

This raw, unflinching drama paints a vivid portrait of Colombian youth pushed to the margins. With naturalistic performances from young non‑professional actors and a soundtrack rooted in punk energy, the film captures both the bleakness and the restless spirit of life in late‑1980s Medellín, where dreams flicker and futures feel impossible to grasp.

Bar: 6pm
Film: 6.30pm

Tickets available at THENICKEL.co.uk

Artwork by @helltowne

JUBILEE
(1978, UK, Derek Jarman)

Widely regarded as the first British punk film, Jubilee emerged directly from the cultural ferment of late-1970s London and features appearances from figures associated with the punk and post-punk scene, including Toyah Willcox, Jordan, Adam Ant, and Gene October. Rather than functioning as a celebration of punk culture, Derek Jarman's film subjects both the establishment and the counterculture to sustained scrutiny, presenting a vision of Britain shaped by commodification, nationalism, and social decay. Combining historical fantasy, political satire, and experimental filmmaking, Jubilee remains one of the key cinematic responses to the economic and cultural crises that transformed Britain during the 1970s.

Bar: 8.15pm
Film: 8.45pm

Tickets available at THENICKEL.co.uk

Artwork by @helltowne by @thenickelcinema

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2

2 days ago

This August at The Nickel!

From acid cowboys to psychic cats, car-crash fetishists to Japanese girl gangs — August at The Nickel spans a cinematic tableaux of sleaze, giallo, kung fu, horror, arthouse, animation, action and psychotronica - with cult classics from Scorsese, Cronenberg, Verhoeven, Lynch and beyond.

Guest-curated events, mystery screenings and a four-hour Japanese epic, step between the blue velvet curtains into our 37 seater cinema, bar and shop - and just say NO to mediocre movies.

Tickets available now at THENICKEL.co.uk by @thenickelcinema

530

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4 days ago

This week at THE NICKEL... freaks, cavemen, leather queens, vice cops, kung fu kids and honeymoon killers. Buy a ticket and take the ride! THENICKEL.co.uk by @thenickelcinema

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0

6 days ago

Shrime Time returns tonight languidly shuffling into @thenickelcinema

First Screening 18:30 👁️
Second Screening 20:45 👁️

#shrimetime #thenickel #bizzarro #forgottenanime by @thenickelcinema

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1

9 days ago

PSYCHOTRONIC SCI-FI DOUBLE BILL!
Tuesday 28/07

FORBIDDEN WORLD (6.30pm)
(1982, USA, Allan Holzman)
A group of scientists working at a remote space research facility create a new lifeform as part of an experimental project, but the creature rapidly mutates into something violent and uncontrollable.

A low-budget sleazy 1980s science fiction horror film from Roger Corman that leans heavily into practical effects, unnecessary nudity, synth-heavy atmosphere, and exploitation-era pacing. Its mix of claustrophobic space setting and creature-feature violence gives it a pulpy, grindhouse energy typical of early B-movie sci-fi.

AND!

THE VISITOR aka STRIDULUM (8.30pm)
(1979, Italy, USA, Giulio Paradisi)
A mysterious drifter arrives in Atlanta to protect a troubled eight-year-old girl whose extraordinary psychic abilities have made her the focus of a sinister conspiracy. As supernatural forces gather around the child, an escalating battle between cosmic good and evil unfolds through a bewildering series of visions, murders and apocalyptic revelations.

Directed by Giulio Paradisi, The Visitor is one of the most singular films to emerge from the golden age of Italian genre cinema, blending science fiction, occult horror, religious allegory and Hollywood spectacle into an audacious cinematic fever dream. Featuring an astonishing international cast including Mel Ferrer, Glenn Ford, Shelley Winters, Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Franco Nero and Sam Peckinpah, the film defies easy categorisation. Long overlooked outside Italy, it has since become a cult favourite, celebrated for its hallucinatory imagery, outrageous ambition and complete disregard for conventional storytelling.

Tuesday 28/07
Book tickets at THENICKEL.co.uk

Artwork by @jonnypaintspainting by @thenickelcinema

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9 days ago

Screening Claude Faraldo’s ‘THEMROC’ at the one and only @thenickelcinema

JOIN US WITH THE PRIMITIVE PICCOLI IN HIS HORNY MAN CAVE 🐷

THURSDAY 23RD JULY
DOORS 5.45 PM
GRAB A TICKET IN THE NICKEL BIO 🍿 by @thenickelcinema

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10 days ago

This week at The Nickel

A Fassbinder double feature, a zero budget Ugandan action flick, a madcap military asylum, an existential swimmer loose in the suburbs, a detective drawn into the bizarre world of dog shows, experimental anime, anxiety survival broadcasts, dreamlike tableauxs of Britishness, radical maverick cinephiles and triple feature of rare Poliziotteschi!

Tickets at THENICKEL.co.uk

Props to @thelastjohnyontheleft for his wizardry by @thenickelcinema

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2

13 days ago

THE VANISHING (SPOORLOOS)
(1988, Netherlands/France, George Sluizer)

While stopping at a motorway service station during a cycling holiday in France, Saskia disappears without a trace. Years later, her partner Rex remains consumed by the mystery, unable to accept the absence of an explanation. As his obsession deepens, he begins receiving messages from a seemingly ordinary man who claims to know exactly what happened. What follows is not a conventional investigation but a chilling confrontation with the nature of curiosity, certainty, and the human need for closure.

Adapted by Tim Krabbé from his novella The Golden Egg, The Vanishing is one of the defining European thrillers of the late twentieth century. George Sluizer's film rejects the mechanics of the conventional murder mystery in favour of a rigorously controlled study of obsession and psychological terror. Drawing much of its power from its matter-of-fact presentation of extraordinary events, the film transforms everyday spaces—petrol stations, campsites, suburban homes—into sites of profound unease. Its influence can be traced through decades of psychological thrillers, while its famously devastating conclusion remains among the most unsettling in modern cinema.

Art by @hamburgerlady
Sunday 12/07
Bar 2:30pm
Film 3:00pm

Tickets at THENICKEL.co.uk by @thenickelcinema

368

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15 days ago