The concept of the 2023 video game published for the PC, but later also for PlayStation and Xbox is as simple as it is brilliant: In a mixture of horror, puzzles and walking simulator you walk over the same short subway tunnel over and over again. A handful of posters on the left, on the right two doors and ventilation shafts. In addition, a man with a wide shirt and black briefcase comes towards you every time. The task of the player now is to recognize whether everything is normal – then you simply continue straight away. Or whether there is a so -called anomaly (which can be, which deviates from the norm) – and then you turn around again. If you decide correctly, you get one step closer to the title -giving output 8. If you only decide wrong once, you have to start all over again.
“”The Exit 8“Is already an indie cultural classic-and has also sold really well. That is why it was actually not a big surprise when a film adaptation of the game was announced. Although, actually: Because of course you ask yourself how the devil should be filmed this scenario without clearly defined action or figures in feature length. Representation of the atmosphere up to the metaphorical representation of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Or “Weathering with you” known director and co-author Genki Kawamura meets this problem by finding a lynchesque plot. Although this actually goes to heart in some places, the bike does not reinvent.
If the man suddenly stands in front of you with the briefcase, then you should better turn around – this creepy grimace is also one of the many possible anomalies!
A young man (Kazunari Ninomiya) is currently on the way to a temporary job. After he just couldn't overcome himself to intervene when a young mother was screamed by a crushing businessman with a screeching baby, he gets a call. His girlfriend is pregnant in the hospital and faces the decision whether to keep the child or not. Meanwhile, the man is worried that he would probably not be a good father – also because he just looked away like everyone else.
But before he can think more, he suddenly stuck in a surrealistic cycle like in one of the paradox paintings by M. C. Escher: He repeatedly crosses the same tunnel, in which the same walking man (Yamato Kôchi) always comes towards him. There does not seem to be a way out until it discovers a board with rules on the wall that amount to the supposedly simple instruction: If you find an anomaly, turn around immediately. If you don't find an anomaly, don't go back …
Tiled
Fans of the game will immediately feel at home in the tunnel. Genki Kawamura certainly did not have the largest budget, but he still had the white -tiled gait rebuilt as precisely as possible. If you have spent hours in the pixel version for hours, you will immediately let your experienced look wander here to find the anomalies. Some of them come directly from the template, but some special fan favorites are missing. So there would still be some material for a potential sequel – even if it could be even more difficult with a story around it. This is almost more exciting, but for those in the audience who have not yet gambled the game themselves and that no Let's Play has already drawn in on YouTube. Because then you have to open up together with the protagonist, which is actually going on the hell here – and what types of anomalies there are.
First of all, “The Exit 8” still occupies the man's egopher perspective – and not only visually, but also auditively: we not only see from his eyes, we also hear with his ears, which, above all, leads to exciting effects when he puts his noise -suppressing airpods in the ear. As soon as the film has arrived in the iconic subway tunnel, the subjective approach is abandoned. So there are always beautiful suspense games when Kawamura with blurred or back head prevents us from seeing whether there is a higher number or a zero on the poster in the next gear-because only that tells us whether the man (and maybe you also) has decided in the tunnel beforehand or not. Otherwise, however, the staging is quite conventional, which is a shame, especially with the – already sparsely sown – horror slopes. The Jump Scares in particular could have tolerated even more punch.
For the nameless protagonist (Kazunari Ninomiya), the tunnel mysterium also means personal growth-hopefully towards a better father.
In contrast to the game, where you do not embodies a clearly outdated character and with the exception of walking you do not encounter any other, a few more figures appear in the film adaptation – and sometimes the film even follows this instead of the main protagonist. In view of the reduced, cool-sterile gameplay of the template, this is surprisingly warm in his testimony of responsibility and paternity. But it only scratches the surface and is obviously primarily a means to an end, because otherwise it would hardly have been enough for more than one short film.
Conclusion: fans of the cult game will be enthusiastic about enthusiasm when you see how exactly the subway tunnel for the film has been reproduced. The Lynch-Light story that was added to the fears of an expectant father, on the other hand, is just just enough to stretch “Exit 8” with some effort to length.
We saw “Exit 8” at the Cannes Film Festival 2025, where he celebrated its world premiere as a midnight screening.