“Exit 8” Review: On Metaphor Over Matter
Before we know anything else about the Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya), we know two things: he is passive, and we are him. On a train screeching through the pitch dark, he takes an AirPod out to observe a man verbally accosting a mother for her noisy baby only to pop it back in. He peers into his reflection in the windowed doors, then looks away. He hangs up on his girlfriend, then picks up, then doesn’t know what to say when she tells him she’s pregnant. The Lost Man loses service as he traverses stairs and tunnels tiled from floor to ceiling under cold overhead lighting. It’s alright; he’s about to be at his temp job, anyway. We see the world through his eyes in a lengthy POV shot.
The Lost Man loses service as he walks the length of Exit 8. He turns into a suspiciously quiet hallway, passes a stoic businessman—the Walking Man (Yamato Kochi)—and advertisements, then makes the next turn, then the next turn is the first turn. He is in an endless loop. Upon reading a sign, the Lost Man learns that he must pay close attention to his environment. If he sees any variations in his experience, he must go backwards, and if it’s a replica to his first one, he may go forward to get to the next “exit.” If he makes a mistake, it’s back to square 0.
If it isn’t already obvious, “Exit 8” is derived from a video game, a popular indie Japanese one similarly named “The Exit 8.” It’s the first project developed by KOTAKE CREATE, released in 2023 to wide appeal on Steam. The experience is short and sweet, and players laud it for its unsettling, liminal atmosphere.
Its film counterpart captures the same eerie feeling through an incredibly literal adaptation. Colors rarely deviate from its iconic black, white and IKEA yellow, the Walking Man is a live action copy and paste of his rudimentary rendering, and anomalies ranging from subtle to formidable are directly pulled from the game with eyebrow-raising CGI. A welcome addition, joyous trumpets emerge at the most inopportune times for that trademark horror-sonic dissonance. As the same path repeats again, and again, and again, a claustrophobic panic sets in, and as mistakes are made, frustration is compounded by your lack of autonomy to simulate the same exasperation the game inspires, but with a fun added layer of distress.
That being said, a lack of narrative sophistication and character insight has also transferred from PC to screen, although undeniably expanded upon. There is no concrete explanation for why this Groundhog Day-esque loop exists. Although a character arc is inserted for the Lost Man, we don’t get to know him or understand his interiority, and we are practically strangers to the other supposed main characters.
It’s no mistake that the trifecta—the Lost Man, the Boy (Naru Asanuma), the Walking Man—are vaguely labeled; director Genki Kawamura makes it known that his priority is not interiority or character study anyway, and has even strategically steered away from such. This distance, along with such a bare-boned premise, allows “Exit 8” to purposefully double down on themes suggested by the game’s restrictive, late-stage capitalist framework and the lizard-brained panic it causes. Capitalism as an inescapable, perpetual hell—or purgatory, as one of the “trapped” individuals describes it—is successfully made unbearable through this labyrinth, this relentless line of advertisements that rarely vary, this uninspiring, cost-effective vacancy. Made known from the very jump by the grayscale uniformity of the people stuffed onto the train, the Developer of this world thoughtfully made it impersonal, numerical, mundane, pale, and—above all else—lifeless. The Developer of this world does not care about your name, nor does it wish to learn it.
“Exit 8’s” proposed antithesis is family. The Boy is looking for his mother. The Walking Man is trying to get back to his son. The Lost Man must discover he has the strength and compassion to be a father through saving the Boy. The only escape from the underground is a gorgeous beach scene in the Lost Man’s subconscious. That foot on our chest is lifted for a single breath of air as golden sunlight glitters on translucent, blue waves. The pair play as though they are truly father and son, and as his girlfriend watches, the Boy gives him a seashell for good luck to parallel their dimmer reality.
However, this thematic potency, this prioritization of interpersonal connection in metaphorical terms over character development, denies audiences that connection with those onscreen to create a fundamental, borderline hypocritical disconnect. Symbolism without emotional resonance means next to nothing, especially when said symbolism is supposed to be about humanity in the first place. The exceptional, profound performances across the board make this closed window even more disappointing.
This isn’t an “Exit 8”-specific issue, however; the horror genre is marked by a lack of character development due to its situational, guttural nature, and this film is far from being the worst offender. And even then, due to the premise, it's hard to know whether this insight would have ever been possible. Maybe—between “Sinners” and “Weapons”—we have just been spoiled by the genre’s exceptional bounds as of late.