If there’s a central issue in translating modern-day video games to the big screen, it’s that the medium has already transcended into full-fledged productions in its own right. As series such as “Resident Evil” and “The Last of Us” have shown, you can build out different characters nestled in lore and plot that make one feel as if they are playing a living, breathing film. Horror game adaptations face an additional degree of difficulty because there’s a difference between attachments to protagonists when watching them versus controlling them.
“Exit 8,” a new adaptation by director Genki Kawamura of the 2023 Japanese psychological horror game “The Exit 8,” manages to avoid potential pitfalls by embodying both the anxious spirit of playing the game itself, while injecting the tension of watching someone play and make certain choices. From a first-person perspective, we are introduced to a man with no name (played by Kazunari Ninomiya) as he ventures through the subway on the way to his temporary job. All of a sudden, the man gets a call from a woman (Nana Komatsu) with whom he was once in a relationship and receives some news. She’s at the hospital and has found out she’s pregnant.
Photo Credit: Neon Pictures
This news sends the unnamed man into a fit of emotional frenzy, gasping for air and not necessarily noticing where he’s walking. Very soon after the phone call, the man notices that all the foot traffic has dissipated, and he is now alone in part of the subway that repeats itself. Did he unexpectedly step into a Twilight Zone portal, or is there another explanation? Except for one other man who walks in a set pattern, Ninomiya’s character is in a set purgatory with a particular set of rules to get out.
Kawamura and co-writer Kentaro Hirase set “Exit 8” with a simple premise: a young man who, the audience is told, is reluctant to fatherhood. That mode of indecision was the primary catalyst for the demise of his relationship, but it seems like fate has given him a second chance (with a twist). With a simple, but effective story comes the ultimate rule for getting out of this predicament.
The number 8 points to the number of “levels” you have to go through, making sure everything is grand with the repeated corridor one will pass through. If you spot an anomaly, no matter how big or small, running in the other direction is imperative. The problem is that the things that aren’t out of place aren’t exactly glaring with flashing red lights. For example, a completely red poster could have a twinge of orange at the bottom. In the delirium of trying this cycle over and over again, you could miss it (and guess what), start at the beginning all over again. What Kawamura does is bottle that tension and frustration and form it into a practical 90-minute metaphoric experience. You don’t know much about the man, but there’s something that rises inside of you, hoping he gets to the end (and gets frustrated when he doesn’t)
Photo Credit: Neon Pictures
When it’s thought that “Exit 8” could grow stale from one perspective, the film flips everything on its ear, introducing two different characters and shifting to the third person. At the film’s midpoint, a middle-aged, well-to-do office worker and a little boy are introduced into the fray. With them, there are two different levels of understanding what’s going on, which are both exhilarating and potentially disheartening. Will the man do the right thing and usher the boy through the game, or is it every person for themselves? Where this adaptation could have been about one metaphor, it intertwines the stories to make something slightly more weighty.
Running away from potential responsibilities can be a nightmare of its own, and Kawamura doesn’t merely lean heavily on the creepiness of the game to invoke stereotypical jumpscares. (There’s one scene that plays up a classic horror setup that cinematographer Keisuke Imamura productively uses darkness for.) What comes out of “Exit 8” is not just a paint-by-the-number adaptation of the game itself, but something that is both emotionally engaging and gives the audience an incentive to hang on every decision, near miss, defeat, and triumph.
“Exit 8” premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. This review is a part of Substream Magazine’s 2025 TIFF Coverage.
