Review:
"Exit 8"
Release Date: April 10, 2026 Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 95 minutes Based on the videogame of the same name, Exit 8 is a deceptively simple but deeply engrossing exercise in liminal horror. Co-writer/director Genki Kawamura’s evocative mindbender finds a man trying to find his way out of a Japanese subway station. The so-called Lost Man is trapped in a looping corridor that should lead to the station’s exit 8. Played by the indefatigable Kazunari Ninomiya, the Lost Man quickly realizes that two of the corridor’s three sections offer clues to reach the exit. “If you find anomalies, turn back,” warns one subway sign. Turn back and you are one exit closer to your destination. Miss the anomaly and you have to start over. Anomalies come in many forms, from the obvious to the complex to the unexplainable to the potentially lethal. The Lost Man has reason to exit the subway with haste: he has a life-changing decision he must make within the next several hours. Kawamura dissects the Lost Man’s personal circumstances, and the dilemma he faces, through the introduction of another trapped character. Through this second victim, Kawamura ingeniously tests the Lost Man’s mettle, powers of observation, and survival instincts, and offers him a glimpse of a possible future life should he and his charge make it through their horrifying ordeal. Mutual trust also factors into Exit 8, as symbolized by a third reluctant player whose presence, role, and fate Kawamura keeps a tantalizing mystery for the first half of the proceedings. By retaining the videogame’s subway setting, Kawamura allows the game to unfold in a sterile and seemingly benign environment—all white tiles and fluorescent lighting—that takes on a haunting and threatening quality the moment the throng of subway passengers clear out to leave the Lost Man alone and isolated. Kawamura wisely abandons the videogame’s first-person perspective the moment the Lost Man steps foot in the looping corridor, which widens the viewpoint to involve the audience in the fun and games. As the Lost Man walks down the same three sections of the corridor, we are looking around, trying to identify the anomalies that Kawamura hides in the posters, storage doors, and vents that we pass by time and time again. Every now and then Kawamura throws at us the absurd, the surreal, or the terrifying to keep us on our toes. But Kawamura also ensures that the anomalies are not abstract—they are based on what we see and experience in our dailies and what we so take for granted that we now miss or overlook. Kawamura makes Exit 8 a pointed commentary on our addiction to social media, our constant doomscrolling, and our move away from establishing and developing interpersonal connections. Exit 8 is what happens when society loses its human touch. The goal of Exit 8 is to shock us out of our daily malaise and to make us notice our surroundings. Kawamura so succeeds in drawing us into the game that we experience Exit 8 vicariously through the Lost Man. One minute we are sharing the Lost Man’s sense of accomplishment, the next we are filled with frustration or dread. More important, we never know what is around the next corner. Kawamura invites us into a mysterious game of spot the difference that, unlike the Lost Man, we do not want to come to an end. Posted: April 8, 2026. Web sites: https://www.neonrated.com/film/exit-8 https://films.neonrated.com/exit-8/ |
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