A neat little horror movie. Not overly scary, but it is an interesting experience.
A man finds himself trapped in a subway’s liminal space that repeats itself. The only way to escape is to observe his surroundings for peculiar changes.
Exit 8 is the movie adaptation of the indie video game of the same name. Developer Kotake Create released the game in 2023, while this is from director Genki Kawamura (producer on Suzume). It stars Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, and Nana Komatsu.
What we get is an evocative, quiet, and unsettling horror movie.
We follow our protagonist taking the subway in Japan. While struggling to resolve a phone discussion with a love of his life, as he becomes trapped in a liminal space between subway platforms. A white-tiled corridor with an S-shaped beginning and end. Weirdly, it appears to be endless. It also repeats itself; a man walking in the other direction always repeats his walk. Our unnamed protagonist determines that there are rules to escape, and undeterred he intends to; a life maybe worth living waits for him beyond.
The movie starts with its video game progenitor’s format: a first-person perspective from our protagonist as he takes the subway in Japan. A few films have done this before. 2015’s Hardcore Henry always springs to mind. But before we settle into this, the perspective becomes a more traditional movie style.
It is a curious video game to make into a movie. Certainly not the first one that comes to mind; it is a game that can be completed in less than an hour. In Kotake Create’s Exit 8, the player must study their surroundings for changes in an effort to break out of the loop. These changes can be big or small. If a change has occurred, they need to go backwards to proceed.
This sort of game has become popular in the last ten years, often known as observation games, or anomaly hunts. Exit 8 wasn’t the first, but the Japanese game was very sleekly presented.
Of course, the transition to movie format requires changes. You cannot have the audience actively trying to spot changes, certainly not the more subtle ones. We need the characters to look for the changes. Which is somewhat less engaging. Especially as the most visually, horrifying anomalies tend to be best for cinema. But as a result we are left wondering: Just turn around immediately! Why are you waiting to see what happens?
But that’s the game’s premise, and perhaps the only negative; its translation to film. It is a nitpick that requires some forgiveness. Oh, there was one character who felt a bit like a deus ex machina. Which was an unusual choice.
Video game adaptations tend to fall into two categories, of varying quality. There’s the beat-for-beat remake, and the schlocky blockbuster. Exit 8 actually manages to become its own story, and has a lot more depth than the video game might exude.
Here, we have a man facing the difficulty of choice. A previous lover tells him she is pregnant, and without his help she will have to cope alone. He then becomes trapped in an endless looping corridor. The allegory for indecision is obvious. The liminal space evokes the systematic livelihoods we live in; where important, life-affirming or life-changing decisions are ignored because the repetitive grind of modern life distracts us. Even the framing device of a packed subway train exudes this theme.
It was very surprising to see this emergent storytelling in something as simple as Exit 8. For a film with deliberate repetition and drawn out moments of quiet, it is intriguing in its uniqueness. Its music was unsettling and suited the environment perfectly. It won’t be for everyone. The horror is quite limited; it prefers to be in its cerebral spaces instead.
Overall, yeah, this was a good one. A single idea followed through competently, and actually improves upon the source material in adaptation. It is almost like video games are a good source of inspiration.
