EXIT 8 (2025)

4 stars

Vertigo Releasing/Visions Home Video. Digital. 8th June. Blu Ray. 29th June

You know the feeling. You arrive at a strange underground station and can’t find your way out, wandering along unfamiliar corridors. EXIT 8 takes this to the next level.

Our unnamed initial protagonist – credited as Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) – is on a busy rush hour train. He puts his earbuds in and listens to his music. The repetitious Bolero – foreshadowing what is to come.

Getting off, he heads to the exit in what is an initially busy station. The crowds of people start to thin out to nothing as he walks down seemingly endless corridors. Then weirdly the same person passes him as he heads towards Exit 8. He walks past the same lockers and a Photo Booth. Then it happens again… and again. The man stops and freakily smiles at him.

He starts to realise he is somehow trapped in the station corridors no matter which way he goes. He tries doors and they are all looked. Odd things – like blood dripping down the walls and from the ceilings.

Strange anomalies start to happen. Little things like the signage changes. Things get freaky. How will he escape this labyrinthine repetitive hell?

Then it switches and concentrates on other people that are trapped there also, like Walking Man (Yamato Kochi). Why are they there? Could it be hell or purgatory as one character suggests?

This is an eerie and moody horror from director Genki Kawamura working from a script co-written with Hirase Kentaro. The film is based on a 2023 independent video game made by Kotake Create. Whether it is good adaptation I couldn’t tell, but the intelligent script and the clever production design make this an intriguing watch. It is carried by strong, emotional performances by the cast. The prowling Steadicam work draws you in as, like the characters, you search the frame for clues as to what is going on.