‘Exit 8’ review: Trapped in a so-so movie

Genki Kawamura’s Exit 8 gets the job done, but pales in comparison to the experience offered by its source material.

Do not overlook any anomalies. If you find an anomaly, turn back immediately. If you do not find any anomalies, do not turn back. Go out from Exit 8. These four instructions are the only context given to players of the 2023 indie video game The Exit 8. Literally. There is no other context.

The game, developed by the pseudonymous developer Kotake Create, doesn’t even have a title screen. And these hints are casually listed on a nondescript sign, so players can easily go several minutes without noticing them. But the simplicity led to satisfying gameplay. It also had the extremely accessible price of just $4 (often marked down further by sales). Two million copies sold later, Toho secured the rights to a film adaptation.

Exit 8 (no The this time around) stars Kazunari Ninomiya as a nameless commuter having a terrible day. He is unable to stand up to a commuter screaming at a single mother, leading to feelings of inadequacy. These doubts worsen when his ex-girlfriend (Nana Komatsu) calls and reveals that she’s pregnant. She wants his help in deciding if she should terminate the pregnancy or not. He’ll just need to get out of the subway and meet her. He just needs to make it through this hallway. He just needs to make it through this hallway. He just needs to make it through this hallway.

How do you adapt something without a story?

The lost man is already several rounds deep into the endless loop of subway corridors before he realizes what’s happening. Each stretch of hallway appears the same. There are some advertisement posters. Locked utility closets. And a walking man (Yamato Kochi) who never acknowledges the lost man’s presence.

After some false starts, the lost man gradually starts to identify the anomalies warned of on the entrance sign. He even finds an unlikely ally in a perceptive young boy (Naru Asanuma) who has been trapped in the hallway longer than he has. But the duo won’t have any hope of escape if the lost man can’t confront his internal struggles.

People often describe The Exit 8 as a horror game, but it’s most accurately a walking simulator. Any actual tension is a projection of the player. It’s very easy to whip oneself into a paranoid frenzy when trying to identify new anomalies, as every wall tile or ambient noise becomes a potential threat. It’s wildly effective but entirely self-guided by the player, which means director Genki Kawamura (who cowrote the script with Kentaro Hirase) faces an uphill battle regarding transitioning the property to a traditional narrative structure.

The shift in media results in inconsistent outcomes.

Some of the execution is extremely impressive. The film is packed with nagamawashi-esque extended shots that, though aided by obvious digital trickery, give the film’s set a vast scope and really hammer home the futility of the struggle to escape. Yasutaka Nakata and Shohei Amimori’s score alternates between electronic beats and extremely loud renditions of popular classical music, creating a claustrophobic, disorienting effect. And the performances, especially Kochi’s haunting rendition of the walking man, are excellent.

Exit 8 also throws in plenty of jabs towards Japanese culture, primarily in regards to the nation’s plummeting birth rate, as well as technology addiction and people’s general indifference towards each other. This aspect of the film is far less consistent. Some moments carry serious weight (the final shot is outstanding), but others manage about as much subtlety and emotional nuance as a subway train. The decision to discard the most disturbing anomalies from the game is extremely questionable when the anomalies original to the film are so underwhelming. And there are multiple times where the writing noticeably dumbs down the protagonist in order to set up a dramatic moment or simply pad the runtime of a scene.

The bottom line.

Video game adaptations have always been a mixed bag. The fact that Exit 8 lands on the “good” end of the spectrum makes it better than much of its kin. And Kawamura delivering an entertaining film when the source material so deliberately rejected the norms of traditional storytelling is extremely impressive. Were this an adaptation of some $80 AAA title, it would be an easy recommendation. But the game The Exit 8 costs less than the cheapest ticket to its film adaptation and offers a good deal more entertainment. To those who have beaten the game enough times for it to have lost all wonder, this will do fine. Everyone else is better off just picking up the game instead.

Exit 8 is in theaters now. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Neon.

Brogan Luke Bouwhuis

Brogan is a Salt Lake City-based writer and film festival programmer who has watched more Scooby-Doo than the majority of the human population. You can find him on social media at @roboteatsdino or at roboteatsdinosaur.com