The greasy smell of popcorn, the sticky floors, the sense that you’ve completely wasted hours of your life, hours you’ll never see again. The cinema is a tough habit to break: nothing makes a sucky summer blockbuster look better than complete darkness and a 20-foot screen.
PovertyPorn has frugal friends (you know who you are) who insist on getting a weekly film fix, in an incredibly cheap way.
Gemma never misses Orange Wednesdays at every Odeon in the country (except the tony ones; we’re looking at you Leicester Square). In exchange for an Orange users’ phone, you get bogof tickets. Get mugging, kids!
Taz has a Cineworld Unlimited card, and in an irritatingly impressive show of sense, firmly refuses to go to any other cinema. Ever. For £11.99 a month, you get to see any movie, at any time, at any Cineworld (except the tony ones; we’re looking at you Shaftesbury avenue).
When you’re feeling pretentious (and we often are) Curzon Cinemas (no hotdogs, plenty of subtitles) give you ticket discounts, free previews and a magazine (!) for £40 membership a year.
When your’re feeling skanky, £10 membership a year at the Prince Charles Cinema (red velvet, double seats in the back row, used to be a grindhouse) gets you daytime films for £1.50 and evening and weekend cinema for £3.50.
For £30 membership a year, faux indie Picturehouse Cinemas give you £2 off tickets, and a newsletter. Thanks.
If you find yourself in Glasgow, and want to go to the cinema on a Monday, you get half-price / 2 for 1 on a random film at the Glasgow Film Theatre using the voucher in the Sunday Herald.
Don’t want to spend £ on a Sunday paper? Go there GFT on the Sunday and pickup one of the many free copies of the paper.
Or you can savour the perks of unemployment / anti-social hours by going in the daytime for £3.