Exit 8
Written by Cameron Geiser
Warning: This review is for Exit 8, which is a film presented at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. There may be slight spoilers present. Reader discretion is advised.
Image courtesy of the Toronto International film Festival.
Exit 8 is a Japanese adaptation of the video game The Exit 8 which itself was inspired by both the games I'm on Observation Duty and The Backrooms, as well as the haunting nature of liminal spaces generally speaking. If you're familiar with those, you'll likely know the tone and general vibe that this film reaches for, and succeeds in depicting. Kazunari Ninomiya stars as the lead of the film, in which he is dubbed “The Lost Man”. Ninomiya's Lost Man begins aboard a subway train in which the woman he had just broken up with calls him to say that she's at the Hospital, and she's pregnant. After taking a moment to absorb the news he declares his intent to meet her at the Hospital, trying to disregard his fears of fatherhood. Next thing you know he turns a corner and is now trapped in the looping realm of Exit 8.
This space between spaces consists of a hallway like any regular underground subway with two corners that loop in on themselves. Our Lost Man begins to understand the unsettling nature of this space as he discovers the rules listed next to a yellow plaque with a number that either ascends with each successive pass through the hallway, or resets to zero if you fail to discover any anomalies that were present. Then he begins to take notes of each and every thing on the walls and in the space, including a non-responsive businessman (Yamato Kôchi) who walks through the hallway with each pass. That is until “The Walking Man” himself becomes one of the anomalies, in which he operates very similarly to the weeping angels of Doctor Who fame. Which is effectively creepy and terrifying in the moment.
Exit 8 is filled with many creative little ideas for the anomalies. Especially strange were the other inhabitants of Exit 8 that he crosses paths with and how they interact with our Lost Man. I don't want to overindulge in plot revelations though as how everything unfolds is really quite something and should be experienced with no prior knowledge in my opinion. What I will dive into though is how effective and crucial the sound design of the film is and how that leads us to the most quality of creep factors. Every sound, and many blink and you'll miss it visual cues, truly fills in the void and intensifies the atmosphere. The cinematography is also quite inventive for only having the confined hallways to work within. It can either be slow and methodically following the subject at hand, or it is wildly swinging through the hallway, rushing alongside our protagonist as he flees away from the various threats that reveal themselves.
Exit 8 may not be the strongest narrative out there, but it doesn't need to be. It is an intense and entertaining self enclosed supernatural horror flick that has just enough going on story wise to be worth the effort. It's also far more twisty and unexpected in how things develop which I appreciated. Exit 8 relies heavily on its reveals and atmosphere above all else and wisely puts that focus first for the audience's benefit. If you're looking for a tight 95 minute oddity of horror, this should suffice!
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.