At once wryly comedic travelogue and heartbreaking tale of love lost, THE JAPANESE SANDMAN is a visual interpretation of a letter William Burroughs' wrote to Allen Ginsberg in 1953, recounting his travels in Central America. Told through Burroughs' wickedly incisive voice, cocaine snorting in Panama and post-prom hand-jobs in 1931 St. Louis become a meditation on loss, memory and the human condition.

Taking place in 1992 during the era of grunge and outdoor gay cruising, we follow two strangers who meet while hiking a once-popular area for gay men known as Devil's Path. Two hikers have gone missing recently and with no leads or bodies and the area is now considered high risk and mostly closed off. The two strangers, Noah (Stephen Twardokus) and Patrick (JD Scalzo), are suddenly forced off the main trail after a confrontation with some suspicious hikers and soon find themselves running for their lives with nowhere to hide but in the trees.