Exit 8 [8-ban deguchi] (2026) Review

Based on the 2023 psychological horror puzzle indie game of the same name – developed and published by Kotake Create – Exit 8 is a film as stunningly simple as it is achingly eerie. Directed by Genki Kawamura, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kentaro Hirase the film follows Kazunari Ninomiya, dubbed the Lost Man in the movie, who starts his day by taking the underground to his temp job.

Idly doom-scrolling like everyone else on the train, he stops for a second when a babies cry overtakes the classical music he is listening to. Spotting a mother trying to console her screaming child he then sees a slimy salaryman angrily berating her for bringing the infant on the packed train and disturbing him.

Turning away and turning up his music, our anti-hero suddenly receives a phone call from his ex who reveals to him, as he traverses the subway station past the throng of commuters and towards its exit, that she is pregnant. Asking him what he thinks she should do the connection suddenly drops and he finds himself alone in a subway corridor which is signposted as Exit 8.

Hurrying along, he heads down the mundane and unspectacular Japanese metro station passageway, passing a business man and around a corner to a sign marked Exit 0 where he turns a corner to find the same mundane and unspectacular passageway and the same walking business man. He turns a corner again and again and again until he finally realises that he is stuck in an endless loop.

Shocked confused and unable to believe what is happening, he luckily discovers there are rules to this unexpected insanity and they are relatively simple: 1 – Do not overlook any anomalies. 2 – If you find an anomalies turn back immediately. 3 – If you do not find any anomalies do not turn back and finally 4 – Go out from Exit 8.

Thus begins the Lost Man’s journey into his own personal hell, as what seems like a simple task becomes herculean and horrifying in equal measure, with the anomalies ranging from infuriatingly small details to grotesque monstrosities. With any mistakes taking him right back to Exit 0 the question seems to be will the Lost Man manage to find a way out before the murderous maze scares him to death or claims him for eternity.

Opening in first person in both a homage to the game and as an effective immersion technique, the excellent set up plunges the audience straight in to both the story and the horror. Unlike so many other video game adaptations, Exit 8 is a film where you can actually play along and we like the Lost Man start to try and memorise the environment while spotting differences all of which makes his mistakes more frustrating when we see them and he does not.

Reminiscent of the amazing first act of Christopher Smiths 2004 Creep or the 2008 Clive Barker adaptation Midnight Meat Train, it is this slight sick twist on the normality of the underground urban environment that many of us inhabit everyday on auto-pilot. This is what makes it all so unnerving, heightened by the lack of explanation to what or why this is happening.

Like the equally basic but creative sci-horror Cube from 1997, the brilliance of the film is in the repetition and the build up of expectation which toys with the viewer as much as the central character. As mentioned, the anomalies range from subtle scares to all out horror shows with a few rounds of nothing at all thrown in just to unnerve you all the more.

Seemingly synched to his psyche, themes of fatherhood and birth begin to seep into the subway, sometimes in the most horrible of ways pushing the main character to the edge of madness multiple time and the movie is as much about its characters inner journey as their repetitious physical one.

With its minimal cast and settings, Exit 8 does so much with so little proving that video game adaptations don’t have to all be kids animated adventure movies or all out action blockbusters. Eerie and evocative, disturbing and deep it is the power of its story that shines through, a story as straightforward in its set up as it is twistedly terrifying in its execution.

Exit 8 is on digital platforms 8 June and Blu-ray 29 June

Movie Rating:

Exit 8 trailer