The Scala Cinema - A love letter

My first visit to the Scala cinema in Kings Cross was in 1991. I’m not entirely sure quite how this sleazily salacious and gloriously gory fleapit had escaped my radar for quite so long. But somehow it had - and it may have done so for longer still had it not been for an unrated screening of ‘The Borrower’ (John McNaughton’s follow-up to his ferociously stunning debut Henry: Portrait of a serial killer.) I’m pretty sure it was the “unrated” prefix which drew me like a moth to the flame; the allure of an uncensored non-MPAA/BBFC butchered piece of celluloid. If memory serves me well The Borrower wasn’t all that great – but it introduced me to the Scala – and for that alone its importance in my cinematic voyages cannot be underestimated.

The Scala’s grand ornate exterior seemed in some way a kind of white mirage shimmering amongst the flotsam and jetsam of sleaze and run-down decay of King’s Cross. But that was the outside. The exterior gave was to a narrow speak easy-like entrance and cubby hole ticket booth that always made the experience of purchasing a ticket a somewhat furtive and taboo act. The steeply ascending marble stairs lead up into darkness and I often imagined Leatherface, resplendent in bloodied apron, bounding down those stairs toward me with a hammer to pulverise me unconscious and render my limp carcass on a meat hook.

Having survived another ascent without ending up in the ‘best chilli in Texas’ I would arrive at the high ceiling cavernous foyer, plastered wall to roof with graffiti and lurid artistic renderings from insane cavemen clearly driven to madness by what they’d witnessed on the screen within.

And from there into the auditorium with its sharply rising ranks of dilapidated seats offering sparse comfort and blood-clot inducing leg-room (particularly during all-nighters). I tended to park myself in the lower rows, close to the screen as opposed to the rear of the auditorium which, due to the steep gradient meant you were practically looking down at the screen from on high in judgement. I detested this enforced detachment. Whatever that day or night’s programme had in store for me, I wanted to face it head on. Of course this meant I could clearly make out the permanent stain on the right side of the screen. I would often speculate as to the origin of the aforementioned stain and came up with several theories. Of these, perhaps the only printable one was from some over exuberant audience participation during The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

But it was a decent size screen, particularly when expanded to accommodate wide screen presentations, so I came to overlook the dubious smear. Besides, there were numerous other distractions to contend with at the Scala...

The cinema had a resident feline presence. I would often feel the brush of a moggy against my leg during performances (either that or the rats of the nearby underground were bolder than I’d anticipated). Universal and Disney invest millions in so-called ‘4D’ technology to give the audience an enhanced sensory experience. Well, whilst their efforts are technically impressive, they pale into insignificance when compared with watching Pet Sematary at the Scala. With an uncanny sense of timing, at the exact moment when the Creed’s family cat ‘Church’ came back from the dead on the screen I was presented with a real-life fur ball in my lap.

In the mid-70’s there was an experimental sound system called Sensurround utilised during screenings of movies like Earthquake and Rollercoaster in select cinemas.  Sensurround was essentially a low-frequency sub-woofer system designed to enhance deep bass effects and help the audience ‘feel’ the thrills. Once again, whilst this must’ve been a mighty fine experience it couldn’t possibly have matched the constant ominous vibrations and rumblings that permeated throughout the very fabric of the Scala courtesy of another unique sound system entitled London Underground-a-rumble-rama.

The Scala also offered its own version of odorama with many a screening being supplemented by olfactory ‘enhancements’, mostly (and thankfully) of unknown origin.

So I think it’s fair to say the Scala was a little rough round the edges. But I loved it. Those 2 ½ precious years where I spent countless hours (and nights) within those glorious confines were some of the most rewarding, most mind boggling, most delightfully degenerate times that I can remember. But my love affair with the place ended cruelly and suddenly in June 1993. Following an illegal screening of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange’ the Scala went into receivership after losing a court case with Warner Brothers. I was in the US on holiday at the time, and was blissfully unaware of these calamitous events unfolding. To do this day I still feel guilty for having (unknowingly) forsaken my beloved fleapit during her hours of most need.

The Scala introduced me to Hong Kong action classics like John Woo’s ‘The Killer’ and ‘Bullet in the Head’. It also brought the legendary action hero Chow Yun Fat into my world. My first viewing of Mr Fat in hero action was accompanied by a lady with a shopping trolley who would rise to her feet in front of me and give a hearty blast on a whistle at every appearance of her idol. It was mildly amusing the first couple of times. 

I was clonked on the head by an under-ripened banana during a screening of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.  Although this act bore no relation to the events unfolding on the screen I did wonder whether maybe it was an attempt by an overly enthusiastic patron to encourage audience participation ala Rocky Horror. If it was it didn’t catch on as I didn’t encounter any projectile fruit (under ripened or fully matured) at a subsequent screening of the film.

I recall several times stumbling out of the Scala onto the Pentonville Road around 6am on a Sunday morning having spent the night watching four or five horror films back to back. Shuffling across the concourse of King’s Cross Station, watery eyes blinking to reacquaint themselves with the misty early morning light of N1, I must surely have given a passable impression of a Romero zombie.
During a Dario Argento all-nighter my crafty 40-winks between film three and four were rudely interrupted by an irate patron running full pelt from the auditorium repeatedly screaming: “It’s the eighty-two minute version, it’s the eighty-two minute version!” (That horrible moment of realisation when he’d worked out we were about to be shown the shortened Creepers rather than the full-length Phenomena). 

Not that he would’ve felt short-changed very often at the Scala. Memories of a double-bill of Jörg Buttgereit’s jaw-dropping homage’s to necrophilia: Nekromantik + Nekromantik 2 on 30^th May 1992 will live with me forever. As will the look on Monika M. (the delightful star of Nekromantik 2) when I approached her after the screenings and asked whether we’d seen the full ‘uncut’ versions? In hindsight I now fail to see what could possibly have been cut from the films given the explicit offerings within and I dread to think what impression Monika M. must’ve formed of me as a result...

Putting this in some kind of context, the emotional scars of the Video Recordings Act of 1984 were still running deep back in the early nineties, and I became somewhat obsessed with what had been snipped, chopped and banned by the BBFC. In this preoccupation I was clearly not alone when, one afternoon whilst queuing outside the Scala, a chap opened up a suitcase on the pavement in front of me which contained a treasure trove of 2^nd (at least) generation copies of the most notorious of the video ‘nasties’. What followed could only be described as a piranha feeding frenzy. In the ensuing mêlée I grabbed Suspiria and New York Ripper (in full-size VHS cases with reasonably photocopied colour covers). The quality wasn’t bad (£10 per title mind you) considering the method of transfer. The Dutch subtitles were a tad distracting but back then beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Other highlights from the Scala programming included a fantastic 3D print of ‘The Creature from the Black Lagoon’ (the best screening of the film I’ve ever seen). ‘Fritz the Cat’ lined up alongside the genuinely disturbing ‘Dougal and the Blue Cat’ during one very odd all-nighter. Frank Henenlotter’s wondrously warped ‘Basket Case’ trilogy and an absolute powder keg double bill of ‘Straw Dogs’ and ‘The Wicker Man’.  And the list could go on and on...

Today the Scala is a swanky music and multi-bar venue. I went back once – but it didn’t feel like I was in the same building. Instead I will keep close to me my fond memories of the old place – like postcards from an unmade David Lynch film.

Paul Worts