Exit 8 review

EXIT 8: 

VIDEO GAME ADAPTATION IS QUITE POSSIBLY THE SCARIEST SUBWAY VENTURE YOU WILL EVER SEE! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: **** out of 4

NEON

It’s real or anomaly in Exit 8

 

            One of the biggest surprises in video game-inspired cinema has recently arrived in theaters in Exit 8, a Japanese-language mystery psychological horror film based on the 2023 indie video game of the same name from Kotake Create. I have never played or even heard of the game until after hearing about this film coming out, so, because of that, I won’t be able to determine how faithful it is to the source material and will instead be judging it on its own merits. 

            The movie got a lot of buzz at film festivals last year (The film was released in North America in 2026) and was highly praised by critics, not to mention the trailer did catch my interest when I finally watched it even though I know absolutely nothing about the source material. Well, now that I’ve seen the film for myself, I may need to check out the game it was based on because holy shit, this was crazy! 

            Exit 8 is a film that’s difficult to put into words, considering all the chaos that goes down in it, and I’m actively trying to avoid spoilers, but I was captivated and on the edge of my seat throughout. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is easily my FAVORITE video game movie, but this might very well be the BEST video game movie that I’ve seen. 

            The film follows a man credited as The Lost Man (Kazanuri Ninomiya-Letters from Iwo Jima, Gantz, Nagasaki: Memories of My Son) who finds himself in a deserted, endless-looping corridor inside a train subway. The man soon discovers that the only way to escape the loop is to make it to Exit 8, but how is he supposed to do that? If he sees an anomaly in the corridor (Even just the tiniest difference), he must turn back the other way, and if he doesn’t see any anomalies, then he will continue forward to hopefully end this Flintstones background-inspired nightmare…oh, and there’s a walking man and a young boy in this, too. 

            Overall, Exit 8 fills its 95-minute runtime with non-stop suspense and mindf*ckery and while the plot itself is rather thin, it’s the execution of it all and its compelling characters that bring it all home. The movie is set in one location throughout the runtime, with the characters going through endless loops, and not once does it feel like a gimmick, nor does the novelty wear out its welcome. 

            My eyes were glued to the screen from start to finish, looking at every single thing in the background to see if anything changed as an anomaly, and wondering what crazy thing was going to appear next. It’s a movie where a lot of the fun comes from observing everything in the corridor as if you’re experiencing it with the man. 

            As I was writing this, I did look up some things about the game, and for the most part, this seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation from the corridor’s design itself to the walking man with the briefcase and translating the game’s logic to a feature film. The first sequence of the man in the corridor is even done in first-person, just like how it is in the game, which was a neat little nod. 

            Even though there’s not a whole lot going on, the characters are very likable particularly Ninomiya as the Lost Man (The film’s protagonist) who’s nervous about becoming a father and tends to tune the world out with his iPhone, but through this situation and joining forces with the Boy, he is given a strong arc and character growth as he essentially becomes like a father figure to this lost boy in the corridor, I would talk more about the Walking Man or the Boy as characters, but I would need to go into spoilers and I have no desire of doing that for this kind of film. 

            The movie gets pretty freaky, whether it’s blood oozing from the wall, the Walking Man standing behind the Lost Man and smiling like the Joker, or a sequence involving hairless rats. It is rated PG-13, but unlike a lot of other horror films with that rating, it doesn’t feel like a watered-down movie; it is disturbing and weird and sometimes grotesque (Though not to the point where it would get an R rating) without cheapening the experience. 

            Exit 8 was quite a surprise, which makes me look forward to watching it again to see all the little details and to check out the original game that inspired it. It’s weird, suspenseful, and keeps you on your toes while having a unique premise and captivating characters to anchor it. This is one anomaly hunting movie you shouldn’t miss.