FILM REVIEW: Exit 8 (2025)

Exit 8 - New Release Review

Director: Genki Kawamura

Starring: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Nana Komatsu

Written by: Kentaro Hirase, Genki Kawamura

Produced by: Yoshihiro Furusawa, Minami Ichikawa, Taichi Itô, Yuto Sakata

Cinematography by: Keisuke Imamura

Original Score by: Shouhei Amimori, Yasutaka Nakata

Synopsis:

A man becomes increasingly desperate when he realizes he is trapped in a subway station, needing to complete a mission to get out.

Thoughts:

Set amidst an inescapable underground train system, every detail must be observed and analysed. Anomalies must be spotted and avoided to progress through each level, to escape the risk of potential purgatory.

'Exit 8' is a solid adaptation of the cult video game. It overdelivers on the concept and is a great introduction to Writer/Director Genki Kawamura. Kawamura has us trapped inside a liminal space loop. A 95 minute immersive experience packed with existential dread and the physical manifestations of fatherhood anxieties.

The film opens on a packed train of head-phoned commuters. Doomscrolling as self regulation to start the day. A baby's cries are too much for one salaryman to handle, who becomes irate. His outbursts are seen from the POV of our protagonist, The Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya). He stops his music for just a second, observing the unnecessary confrontation before unpausing, turning away to face his reflection in the darkness. Preferring peace over disrupting his own comfort. Moments later he receives a life changing phone call before becoming lost underground.

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It’s repetitive and clinical. The film leans into that familiar strain of minimalist horror where the environment is the antagonist. A bold and simple premise that evolves aggressively in disorientating fashion. It’s less about what’s happening and more about what might go wrong. Trial and error without feedback. That lingering uncertainty does most of the heavy lifting.

Visually it’s very stripped back. With harsh lighting, flat textures and an oppressive uniformity turn the mundane hostile. Photographs instantly corrupted. There is this dryness to the presentation that borders on the absurd. Moments that could be read as terrifying often land somewhere closer to dark comedy, purely because of how rigidly the film commits to its own rules. The familiarity becomes the film’s greatest trick by weaponising the everyday through signage and familiar footsteps. 

The tension doesn’t escalate in a traditional sense, it tightens slowly through the creative use of environmental noises and sound FX in the sound design, headed up by Masato Yano. The soundscape plays a huge role in the storytelling making each time we return right back to the start feel somewhat different. We feel the weight of every decision as sounds bleed, shots echo, meanwhile back at the ranch, the continuously doom loop pushes us through the empty corridors, instilling dread each time we revisit.

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The scenes on the train had me thinking of the opening to Adrian Lyne’s 'Jacob’s Ladder' (1990). Polar opposites in the details, two aesthetics that couldn’t be more different but the sense of dread felt the same. During one sequence, a door opens randomly, in the distance the man is able to see himself on the train, observing the confrontation from earlier in somewhat of an outer body experience. There’s something a little 'Silent Hill' about it too, specifically with the giant pink rats mutations with human features, scurrying around in the darkness. Fears are presented in a way it’s like they are on display, stored in cubes like the horrors from the final third of 'Cabin in the Woods' (2011). But the biggest inspiration seems to come from Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) with an ode to the bloody elevator. Then there’s The Women who says “doing the same thing everyday is so sad” over and over again as if programmed. All work and no play make something something. To the point my partner called the movie “Salaryman Shining.”

The star of the show is without question Yamato Kochi as The Walking Man. When he appears, you don’t expect much development beyond ‘white shirt NPC’, but he becomes the film's most memorable character. We branch off into his own loop, as he frantically tries to keep it together, he abandons The Boy and dares to climb the stairs to the harsh glare of freedom. Kochi, an experienced actor with a burning passion for Shakespeare, running a theatre company solely promoting the works of the legendary playwright. He arrived in London this week and was spotted on the tube before his debut performance in Royal Shakespeare Company’s 'Macbeth', making a heartfelt post on social media detailing his gratitude for the opportunity.

He also shined during Neon’s promotional efforts in the US, which saw the film do well opening weekend. A walk with The Walking Man in Washington Square Park went viral, as well as appearing at several NYC subways stations.

There’s something distinctly modern about that low-level doom and the film's parental anxieties as well as concerns about surveillance, pattern recognition and OCD manifestations with the counting for example. Despite its minimalism the film lingers, not through imagery or character but through sensation. The film risks becoming too repetitive before closing out with great pacing and intrigue. Currently as it stands, one of the highest rated video game adaptations in recent memory. This puzzle makes a great introduction into liminal horror. I have already been binge watching play throughs of the game on YouTube.  

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Some behind the scenes footage on social media shows the efforts made to get right where they were needed to be as efficiently as possible, The Walking Man is seen taking up a bicycle to make his way around the exterior of the set. The backrooms backrooms around the perfectly crafted metro set. The underground setting is a labyrinthine, a metro system that feels both real and unreal. 'Exit 8' is an absorbing commentary on burn out and decision fatigue. A look at the destructive culture of the salaryman. The endless work cycle and daily grind through a sinister, pro-bus lens.

Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-Gary McIlhagga

'Exit 8' is in UK and Ireland cinemas April 24th from Vertigo Releasing.