When a private detective, Sho (Yûichi Minato) is tasked with find the creators of a snuff film, it leads him spiralling into a world of sex slavery, torture and murder. With nobody to trust, Sho discovers that even his own mind may not be reliable, as his past catches up with him.

Part Noir, part 1960’s Roughie, Atsushi Yamatoya’s mystery takes private detective, Sho into the depths of duplicity and has him question his own past. There’s a touch of Memento’s Leonard Shelby about Sho, as this film plays with memory, often making its echoes abstract and surrealist. The use of shadow, corrupted audio and camera placement to disorient the viewer, only adds to the looming sense of dread.

Sho hunts down one particular bad seed, and you come to wonder if he’s always hunting the same man, or perhaps versions of him. At times it seems that reality itself may not be wholly dependable, what with all the Dutch angles, mannequin heads and assortment of peculiar sights.

While the female form is seen throughout the movie in various states of peril and discomfort, there’s almost a humorous swerve to the way in which the protagonist doggedly pursues his man, over the advances of an obvious femme fatale. His dialogue relating to his gun is quite clearly a mockery of macho Film Noir dialogue.

An extension or substitute for his penis. More alert and ultimately, more trustworthy. The lines are cliched but purposefully so, as if they were stolen from the mouth of Sterling Hayden a decade earlier.

As far as the Roughie/Pinku elements go, Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands is intermittently violent, and the treatment of women is abhorrent but that is ultimately the point. Sho’s descent into a world way over his head feels very much like the precursor to Paul Schrader’s Hardcore, and by extension, Joel Schumacher’s 8mm.

The final act pulls the rug from under Sho (and the viewer) to the extent that the narrative’s reality can be dissected and ruminated on long after the credits end.

Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands is available now through Third Window Films

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