The Exit 8 is an indie horror game where you’re stuck in an endlessly looping subway corridor.  While I never actually played it myself, I did watch someone else play it on Youtube, and it was one of the first anomaly games I ever saw (if not THE first).  In this genre, you’re usually tasked with walking through the same location over and over again, and if you spot any differences (anomalies), you turn back.  Get it right a certain number of times in a row, and you can escape.  Get it wrong, and the number on the wall indicating your progress resets to 0.  These games can be fun, as they stretch the observational skills of the player (and in the case of Youtube, the viewer, as well) and force you to pay attention to details.  Plus, some of the anomalies can get a bit spooky, as well…

I recently learned from Hatm0nster that Exit 8 actually spawned a movie over in Japan.  Hearing good things about it, I decided to check it out for myself (albeit with English subtitles, as my Japanese is very, very basic…).  The movie opens with Maurice Ravel’s famous “Bolero”, a fittingly repetitive song that perfectly encompasses the looping nature of the plight the main character, simply known as the Lost Man, is soon going to find himself in.  For the first portion of the movie, the camera is shot from a first-person perspective as the Lost Man rides the subway, witnesses a jerk yelling at a woman because her baby is crying, gets a call from his pregnant ex-girlfriend, and eventually finds himself walking through the same exact corridor multiple times in a row.  I loved the first-person perspective up until this point because it really feels like watching someone play the game, with an identical hallway, including a businessman walking by in the opposite direction.

Not long into realizing that something is decidedly off about this corridor, the Lost Man sees instructions for how to progress to Exit 8 (yes, there are rules just like in the game).  At first, he’s smart and attempts to take photos of everything with his phone, but these all get corrupted.  (Well, it was worth a try…)  And so, he’s forced to do what we all had to do playing such games…just memorize, giving nicknames to each poster that he passes, alongside keeping track of doors and vents and whatnot.  As you’d expect, the movie is pretty slow-paced, but this isn’t something I mind as long as it’s done well, and I believe it generally was.

To add to the story (which is pretty thin, but that’s also to be expected), you also follow the Walking Man for a short time, which was interesting, plus there is a young boy who is important to the plot, as well.  The main story, however, heavily focuses on the Lost Man’s apprehension towards becoming a father, which I didn’t find terribly interesting.  I suppose it’s not a bad idea for the looping corridor to play on these anxieties, but in that case, I would have liked for a deeper exploration of what this place is and what it does to people.  Is it similar to the way certain interpretations of the Backrooms take our nostalgic memories and twist them into an uncanny shadow of their former selves?  I see the beginnings of some potentially interesting lore here, but it could have been explored in a deeper fashion.

Exit 8 was, admittedly, not very scary, either, and I would have liked more eerie elements and interesting anomalies.  The stuff in the dark was creepy in a gross way, and really the only other unsettling example was early on when the Walking Man was grinning creepily at the main character.  Even so, I still appreciated certain subtle details that I noticed that the Lost Man didn’t initially, such as the words “Turn Back” written repeatedly on the back of the “Exit 8” sign instead of the usual word “Concourse”.

Although I generally liked the movie, the main character’s behavior did annoy me at times.  At first, the Lost Man was pretty smart, catching on to the rules quickly and taking pictures.  But then, later on, he sees anomalies and takes forever to act.  When the lights go out, even though he has a light on his phone, he takes far too long to just turn around and go back.  (Yes, there are spooky things in the dark, but that’s all the more reason to get the heck out of there!)  And the most aggravating instance of all was when an alarm goes off, and he just stands there, waiting and bracing for whatever’s going to happen.  Seriously, dude, the moment you see or hear an anomaly, just turn around and go back.  He could have easily retreated before the alarm ever led to any actual danger.

This movie also has a comically over-the-top depiction of asthma.  I have asthma, but I don’t spend all my time coughing and wheezing because I walked five feet.

Despite a few nitpicky complaints, I generally enjoyed Exit 8.  It was a very unique movie that adapted the game it was based off of quite faithfully, and it managed to keep my interest despite its slow pacing and (expected) repetitive nature.  A stronger story and theming surrounding what this place is and does would have been nice, and as I mentioned before, some of the main character’s annoying behavior did bother me.  But in general, I would recommend this movie to fans of Exit 8 or anomaly games in general, especially if you’re interested in a milder kind of horror that is more existential or unsettling rather than something that relies on gore and jumpscares.

All screenshots from the game’s official Steam page