In the video game The Exit 8, players walk through an underground hallway of a Japanese metro station. If they notice anything different or strange with the hallway — any anomalies — they need to turn back, or else something horrifying will happen and they’ll be stuck in a loop forever. It’s a deceptively simple (and creepy!) premise for a game, but while playing “spot the difference in a liminal space” makes for good gameplay, it doesn’t offer much of a narrative for a full feature film. Yet that didn’t stop Genki Kawamura from venturing into the nightmare subway.
Now opening in the United States months after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and in Japanese theaters last year, Exit 8 continues an ongoing trend of video game movies that are actually pretty darn good. Kawamura, who cowrote the movie in addition to directing it, found ways to give Exit 8 an emotional center that the game lacked while still capturing the uncanny experience of walking down the seemingly endless tiled hallway.
