‘Exit 8’ Review: Kawamura Genki’s Eerie Adaptation of Walking Simulator Video Game

Video games adaptations often struggle, if they even try, to replicate the tangible thrill of engaging with another reality. Most of these films also stubbornly subject their source material to recognizably cinematic patterns, inventing or expanding on background lore in ways that are antithetical to the vicariousness of playing a game.

Kawamura Genki’s Exit 8 doesn’t have much in the way of mythology to draw on from its source inspiration. The indie adventure game, released in 2023 by Kotake Create, is a creepy escape-room experience that tasks the player with trying to deduce their way out of an endless subway passageway. By staying true to the game’s conceit, Kawamura’s film often achieves the rare feat of having those of us in the audience feel like we’re in the gaming seat themselves.

Exit 8 begins with a lengthy unbroken shot from the point of view of our soon-to-be beleaguered protagonist, known only as the Lost Man (Ninomiya Kazunari). Disembarking from a crowded subway car on the way to his temp job, the man takes a phone call from his ex-girlfriend (Hanase Kotone) and then strangely ends up in a repeating stretch of the same subway passage.

This extended sequence is instantly unnerving, effectively inhabiting the Lost Man’s perspective as he seamlessly progresses from being surrounded by throngs of other commuters to suddenly ending up alone in a liminal purgatory of sorts. Well, not entirely alone, as we also catch glimpses of the Walking Man (Kôchi Yamato), an office worker who mechanically and silently passes by the Lost Man, seemingly trapped in an eternal loop of his own.

Exit 8 breaks with its opening POV shot once the Lost Man’s predicament is established, but the film still keeps us in his head space. A sign on the wall explains the rules of his quest, which boil down to noticing any “anomalies” on each trip down the ostensibly identical hallway. Whether there are or aren’t any differences between the hallways indicates which way he should end up proceeding, either forward or back the way he came. As the Lost Man takes mental notes of everything during each trip down the passageway, it’s impossible not to start obsessively scanning for details alongside him: the hanging advertisements, the number of lockers in a bank against the wall, the movements of the Walking Man, and so on.

The film mines tension from the absurdity of the Lost Man’s confinement, and in ways that recall Vincenzo Natali’s Cube, perhaps the granddaddy of escape-room horror. To that end, Kawamura at times pushes the original game’s subtle eeriness into full-on scares, introducing spooky apparitions and a horde of mutated creatures that would feel at home in Silent Hill. And the Walking Man, with his rigid posture and intermittent proclivity for turning around and flashing a disturbing rictus grin, becomes a memorable boogeyman of sorts.

Traditional narrative elements do creep into the film, in an attempt to give it some emotional weight. The Lost Man’s opening call with his ex-girlfriend, in which she informs him that she’s pregnant with his child, turns his predicament into an allegory for his indecisiveness and fear of fatherhood, which is underlined by the appearance of another character in the third act who he has to protect. Despite the film’s novel context, its thematic through line comes to feel too neat by half, which could also be said about how the ending ties things up.

While this denouement may adhere to a certain puzzle-box logic, there’s a more interesting idea within Exit 8 that’s less explored. When the film unexpectedly and momentarily shifts its focus around the midway point to the Walking Man, it flirts with being a commentary on karoshi, or death from overwork. This diversion is stinging, but that’s all it is—a tantalizing thread that leaves you feeling that if the filmmakers had followed it further down the rabbit hole, then Exit 8’s anxiety-inducing aura might have lingered long past the obligatory Game Over.