Exit 8 (dir. Genki Kawamura)

by Jack Martin | Apr 21, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 95 mins

UK Distributor: Vertigo Releasing

UK Release Date: 24 April 2026

WHO’S IN EXIT 8?

Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, Nana Komatsu

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Genki Kawamura (director, writer, producer), Hirase Kentaro (writer), Yoshihiro Furusawa, Minami Ichikawa, Taichi Itô, Yuto Sakata, Taichi Ueda, Kenji Yamada and Akito Yamamoto (producers), Shouhei Amimori and Yasutaka Nakata (composers), Keisuke Imamura (cinematographer), Sakura Seya (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A lost subway passenger (Ninomiya) must navigate a mysterious and terrifying maze to escape…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON EXIT 8?

You can’t accuse the filmmakers behind Exit 8 of failing to strike whilst the iron is hot. The original Japanese video game, which is essentially a walking simulator with added horror elements, isn’t even three years old and it’s already been adapted into a movie, complete with game-accurate locations and a formidable expansion of the in-universe lore. For the sake of comparison, it took at least a decade for there to be a Mario movie (even though it’s the one we don’t talk about), and even longer for ones based on Sonic the Hedgehog, Need for Speed, Minecraft and others – so, said iron is barely warm, let alone hot enough to strike.

But instead of feeling like a rushed product intended to capitalise on the game’s success (at least in Japan, whereas internationally it’s a bit more obscure), writer-director Genki Kawamura’s Exit 8 doesn’t even require any experience of the game to enjoy it, for the film works as a simple yet effective psychological horror that makes the most out of its labyrinthian premise.

The film opens with an extended first-person shot from the perspective of an unnamed subway passenger (Kazunari Ninomiya), whose inaction when encountering abuse toward a mother and her crying baby leaves him unnerved, especially when he receives a call from his ex-girlfriend (Nana Komatsu) who informs him that she’s pregnant. But before he can properly respond, the man finds himself lost and alone in a subway corridor, one that keeps bringing him back to the same point with the same suitcase-carrying businessman (Yamato Kochi) walking the opposite direction. He quickly learns that the only way out is through Exit 8, which can only be reached by going through the repetitive corridors, as well as some important rules to follow, namely to turn back whenever anything out of the ordinary becomes apparent, which will bring him closer to the exit if he complies and right back to the beginning if he fails.

It’s such a simple premise, not to mention downright terrifying for anyone who may be claustrophobic, that is executed with striking creativity. Kawamura shoots the film as a series of long uninterrupted takes, stitched together by near-seamless editing to create the illusion that we’re following the main protagonist through a continuous loop, often to a point where you’ll wonder how exactly he and cinematographer Keisuke Imamura were able to pull it off. As the camera floats alongside him and around some of the rather creepy anomalies he encounters, like the frozen grin of the businessman or the eyes of posters on the wall suddenly following his every move or even a horde of horribly mutated hairless rats, it’s chilling to watch unfold within a sterilised white-tiled environment that, in addition to exactly matching the production design of the video game, is crafted with an eerie perfectionism that always keeps you on edge.

The direction on this movie is sublime, as Kawamura wisely keeps the why and how of this endless maze of horrors entirely under wraps, focusing exclusively on how our hero – and even a few other surprise characters – responds to the subtle changes that are astonishingly easy to miss. You also feel the deep frustration they go through as they keep winding up back at the start despite doing everything within their power to spot one anomaly after another, like they’ve used up another one of their video game lives without even realising. Most of all, in a few tender scenes, you are able to form a decent enough connection with these people as they share their deep insecurities that led them to becoming trapped in the first place, and as such you really do want to see them escape or even, much more brutally, watch as they slowly succumb to its psychological and eventually physical hold.

When it comes to self-insertion, however, there are multiple points in this movie where you could picture yourself doing a much better job of identifying the anomalies than the characters do, which can at times make it a little frustrating. Some of the smaller changes, like subtle design differences on the posters or a door handle that’s on the opposite side, are easier to understand how they may be missed, but some of the much more prominent ones like a crying baby inside a locker or sudden phone reception or an actual flood of debris charging right at them are so clearly out of the ordinary that it’s baffling how they don’t recognise that sooner, especially after they’ve been through it for as long as they have. If, for instance, I somehow found myself trapped in this exact scenario, I would turn back the nanosecond that a sudden unexpected noise or entirely new physical object would present itself, and as such I would probably reach Exit 8 within ten minutes which might not have made for an eventful movie but at least I’d make it out in one piece.

But if you were to remove that aspect from your mind, Exit 8 still holds itself together as an entertaining J-horror that is creepy when it needs to be, all with very few sudden musical stingers, and very well-crafted in ways that will greatly please fans of the game as well as complete newcomers. As a video game adaptation, it might not be at the very top, but it certainly positions a lot higher than the majority of other movies of its kind.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Exit 8 is an entertaining J-horror that brings the video game to accurate life in ways that are genuinely creepy thanks to some highly creative filmmaking that makes as strong use as it can with a simple yet effective premise.