The 1982 film was rejected by its conservative financiers but had an influential afterlife at cinemas such as the Scala in King’s Cross. A restored print is showing in London this month

You never forget your first visit to Café Flesh. Mine took place in June 1986: it was a month before my 15th birthday and I was spending Saturday afternoon, as I often did, at the notorious Scala cinema in tawdry, pre-gentrified King’s Cross. I don’t know which staff member thought it appropriate to allow an acne-peppered child in to see the post-apocalyptic sex fantasy Café Flesh – in a double-bill with the equally explicit hardcore horror-comedy Thundercrack! – but I’m glad they did.

When I emerged blinking into the early evening sunlight, I had witnessed sights that few 14-year-olds could have imagined. The movie is set in a desolate future where “the Nuclear Kiss” has left 99% of the population unable to enjoy intimacy without becoming nauseous. These are the Sex Negatives. The remaining 1%, known as Sex Positives, are forced to perform for the chaste, dead-eyed masses. They grind away joylessly on stage to a jazzy but sinister electronic score by Mitchell Froom, who went on to be a producer for Paul McCartney, Crowded House and Suzanne Vega (to whom he was briefly married).