For a number of years in the 1980’s and 90’s, London’s Scala cinema was a home away from home for lovers of cult movies – an astounding cinema club that changed its programme daily and offered up inspired double bills and all-nighters of films that you couldn’t see anywhere else, enhanced by the sound and vibrations from passing trains, the prowling cats, the eccentric audiences and the often battered nature of film prints (I remember Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Scum of the Earth having about thirty minutes added to the running time due to the number of times the brittle print snapped during one screening). The Scala played host to pioneering horror festival Shock Around the Clock (and several imitators), was the location for the launch of David McGillivray’s Doing Rude Things, played host to events hosted by Skin Two and cult film curator Jack Stevenson and was without doubt the best cinema in the world. Like everyone else, I loved it.

Unfortunately, a clandestine screening of A Clockwork Orange, threats of the redevelopment of Kings Cross, rent increases and local authorities that didn’t much care for helping out a cinema that showed Deep Throat and The Driller Killer finally saw the Scala close its doors in 1992.

Now, a new season plans to resurrect the spirit of the great cinema. Scala Forever is a month and a half long season of classic screenings in the Scala tradition, taking place across assorted London venues. And while its doubtful that any of the locations will match that unique Scala ambience, the films are an inspired selection that could easily bankrupt any London-based cult movie hounds.

Several of the classic Scala mainstays are back – I’m thrilled to see Café Flesh playing (paired with Liquid Sky), and you can breathe a sigh of relief – Thundercrack! is indeed playing. There’s a John Waters double (Desperate Living and Female Trouble), plenty of Russ Meyer, Taxi Zum Klo, a Hong Kong action all-dayer, a Dario Argento triple, an all-nighter of Slugs, Re-Animator, Basket Case, Phantasm and Humanoids from the Deep, a Zombie all nighter, a pair of Fassbinder’s, a Herzog double and much more. Fittingly, it all ends with a (legal) screening of A Clockwork Orange. It’s enough to make a grown man weep.
The screenings are all listed on an authentic recreation of the legendary Scala poster programmes – a must for any wall.
Not being London based, I probably won’t get to see much of this myself – I hope Strange Things readers will be able to fill me in on the glories that I miss. Hopefully, I will at least make it to Café Flesh (which I never actually saw at the Scala), and a couple more if possible.

Full details can be found here.