On an unassuming street in central London, a red-painted building peeks at passersby — its facade plastered with a close-up of The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. Inside, I’m watching Ruggero Deodato’s The Washing Machine, an Italian murder mystery involving psychosexual mind games, fridge fornication, and bleeding appliances.
It’s the kind of filmic fever dream only The Nickel would dare to screen: a new micro cinema in London founded by filmmaker and programmer Dominic Hicks. Imbued with the frenetic spirit and sleazy charm of retro American grindhouse theatres, it’s a shrine to the deranged gems of exploitation cinema: gritty, boundary-pushing B-movies.
Or as Hicks puts it: “A safe place for weirdos and outsiders.”
June’s inaugural screenings include everything from Todd Browning’s silent horror The Unknown, to Roman Polanski’s erotic thriller Bitter Moon, to David Winters’ Cannes-set giallo The Last Horror Film. The programming embraces an anything-goes approach, inspired by the edgy offerings of London’s infamous Scala cinema.
“I like films where the beauty in them comes through how the audience receives and nurtures them in their collective imagination,” Hicks tells Euronews Culture. “Whether it’s the practical effects, or the score, or the bad acting that they find really quotable — it belongs to the audience in the long run.”
The Nickel might be small, but in an era of digital disconnection and algorithmic ennui, it’s part of a growing movement across Europe: DIY film clubs and hyperlocal venues that counter the monoculture of streaming services and multiplexes. From Liverpool’s trans-inclusive ‘Paraphysis Cinema’ to the feminist-themed ‘Tonnerre’ in Paris, these repertory pop-ups represent a desire among cinephiles to discover subversive oddities as intended: with an audience.
“These community spaces are an opportunity to bring people back together to have conversations about movies,” Hicks says. “You don’t have to all feel the same, but the idea of being challenged, or getting the giggles together about some strange little forgotten gem, is always going to be entertaining.”
This idea of confronting discomfort together is key. Namwali Serpell, writing in the New Yorker, recently lamented the rise of “new literalism” — a cinematic trend where movies like The Substance and Anora heavy-handedly spell out their meanings and politics. Exploitation cinema, in all its moral ambiguity and tonal absurdity, offers a thrilling antithesis.
“I actually prefer, particularly when you look at the films of the 70s, how murky those movies were — that it’s not abundantly clear if the filmmakers had the right morals,” Hicks explains. “For me, that doesn’t mean it’s actually promoting poor morals. I think audiences are intelligent enough to challenge what they’re seeing.”
Before raising nearly £14,000 (€16,640) for its permanent space, Hicks ran The Nickel as an event programme for his local pub and The Cinema Museum. Much of what he shared was on rare 16mm prints, tapping into the sensory ambience of physical formats.
Similar to the revival of vinyl, the crackle and click of film reels have become a way for people to connect with art more tangibly. “You can’t come close to the aesthetic experience of watching an original film print being projected in public when you’re streaming things digitally,” Hicks says, citing one magical moment at The Cinema Museum when the projector got stuck and burned a film print: “Everybody was just delighted. It was like we’d seen a shooting star.”
Though The Nickel is still under construction when I visit, the vibe already feels special. Obscure physical media lines the entrance’s shelves, their lurid covers begging to be fondled. Meanwhile, the dimly-lit basement bar is set to double as a communal hub for film-related workshops. “Ultimately the plan would be to have everybody create projects together, then we can screen them here,” says Hicks, excited at the prospect of working “on weird shit” with others.
At a time when cinemas face a precarious future, The Nickel’s vision is ambitious and comfortingly optimistic. According to the Independent Cinema Office (ICO), almost a third of UK independent cinemas are under threat, with London institutions like The Prince Charles launching petitions against redevelopment. But Hicks doesn’t believe cinema will die — just its commercial models of old.
“I think we’re seeing a return to that neighbourhood, smaller, independent cinema, because multiplexes don’t give people a compelling enough reason to leave their sofas,” he explains. “But I have faith that people won’t surrender something so essential as the experience of going to the movies. I really hope not, anyway. And if they do, it’ll be a hill worth dying on for me.”
As the end credits of The Washing Machine roll, the room fizzes with the excitable energy of a shared (and sordid) little secret. Away from the anodyne streaming output, there’s a quiet rebelliousness in The Nickel’s embrace of mess, madness and misfits — a reminder that cinema’s darkened rooms are often where we feel most fully seen.
The Nickel cinema opens in London on 11 June.