Exit 8

Turn that numeral on its side and it’s an infinity sign, a fittingly recursive symbol for co-writer/director Genki Kawamura’s Möbius strip of a horror movie taking place entirely within the endlessly repeating halls of a Tokyo subway station. Exit 8 feels at once like an ancient fable and an internet-era creepypasta about the choices we make, the mistakes we regret, and the chance to become a better version of ourselves by walking a labyrinth that may offer salvation — or a Minotaur — at its center.

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It’s rush hour and everyone has somewhere to be, including the Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) — who, though he doesn’t know it yet, is headed nowhere fast. Beginning in a POV style that mimics the video game on which Exit 8 is based before switching to a normal view, the camera closely follows our protagonist throughout his Escher-esque ordeal. He’s headed to his temp job when he receives a phone call that he at first ignores, only picking up for his ex-girlfriend (Nana Komatsu) the second time to learn that she’s with child. Though clearly unsure whether he wants to be a father, the Lost Man decides to bail on work and meet her at the hospital.

Would that it were so simple. After following the signs for Exit 8 and walking down a white-tiled hallway, he finds himself back at the beginning. Then he does it again. It’s only after repeating this process a few times that he notices a sign with instructions: “Do not overlook any anomalies. If you find an anomaly, turn back immediately. If you do not find any anomalies, do not turn back. Go out from Exit 8.” Every time he heeds these directions, our nameless hero finds that the “0” at the beginning of the passageway has changed to a “1,” then a “2,” and so on; whenever he makes a mistake, the counter resets. There’s an elemental power in that simplicity. It’s the kind of thing a child can commit to memory easily, as is a certain nursery rhyme from another horror movie: “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…”

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Anomalies include but are not limited to a man with a rictus smile plastered to his face, posters with ubiquitous gazes, the reverse side of a sign that reads Turn back turn back turn back rather than Concourse, floodwaters preceded by emergency sirens, lockers full of crying babies, and blood seeping from the walls. Some of these speak to distinctly Japanese anxieties (natural disasters), while others are universal (becoming a parent); all are unsettling in their own way and have us as nervous about overlooking one and starting over as the Lost Man.

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Exit 8 is itself an anomaly: a worthwhile adaptation of a video game. Kawamura takes his source material’s central idea and expands on it in a way that’s true to its spirit yet more fully realized and, frankly, interesting — at the risk of damning it with faint praise, Exit 8 may just be the first truly great movie based on a game. Its source material isn’t nearly as widely known as the likes of Fallout or The Last of Us, however, as it’s a niche within a niche: a horror game belonging to the subgenre known, sometimes derisively, as walking simulators because the actual gameplay consists of little more than walking through an environment and occasionally interacting with it. If you’re so inclined, you can buy it for $3.99 and finish it in under an hour.

Exit 8 feels at once like an ancient fable and an internet-era creepypasta about the choices we make, the mistakes we regret, and the chance to become a better version of ourselves.

The film nevertheless seems destined to polarize viewers, with some finding it terrifying and others dismissing it as boring. Must the two be mutually exclusive? For while it’s true that Exit 8 isn’t scary in the conventional sense — there are only one or two jump scares, no gore, and little in the way of a suspenseful soundtrack — it nevertheless induces a kind of existential dread, like a thought experiment that threatens to upend your understanding of the world and whatever comes after it.

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How many people’s personal hells would resemble walking down an endless hallway toward an exit that never comes, after all? This is a feature-length escape room of a movie, one you’ll be relieved to leave when the credits roll even if a part of you feels compelled to linger in its uniquely cinematic limbo. “Do you think we’re dead?” asks a young woman (Kotone Hanase) who, like our hero, has been stuck down here for who knows how long. Tedium vitae comes in many forms, some more mundane than others: “Going to work on the packed train, doing the same thing day after day,” she adds, “now that sounds like hell.”