There’s a Good Video-Game Adaptation Out (Without Mario in It)

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Though inspired by a video game, the thriller Exit 8 deeply explores the anxieties surrounding Japan’s declining birth rate. The film begins with a disturbing scene on a Tokyo subway: a young mother is aggressively confronted by a man for having a crying baby. We see this through the eyes of the protagonist, known only as the Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya), who is on his daily commute. Amidst a crowd of commuters in gray suits, the mother and her baby stand out. A frustrated salaryman berates her for disrupting the peace, acting as if public spaces are exclusively for adults and children are now a rare, unwelcome sight. Instead of helping, other passengers, including the Lost Man, avoid eye contact and bury themselves in their phones. This happens just as he’s about to receive a call that will force him to consider becoming a father himself.

The 2023 indie game The Exit 8 is a short, atmospheric experience where players explore a looping series of train station corridors. Progress requires careful observation – looking for anything unusual, like changing advertisements or sudden floods – and retracing your steps when something seems off. The game is clearly inspired by Hideo Kojima’s P.T., which also featured an endless hallway, but The Exit 8 focuses more on creating a creepy, unsettling mood than outright scares, leaning towards a gothic, institutional feel rather than the disturbing imagery of something like Eraserhead. The game offers little in the way of a traditional story, which allows the creators to build a narrative that beautifully complements the game’s dreamlike, cyclical structure. The story follows a man who receives a call from his ex-girlfriend, who reveals she’s pregnant and asks for his input. This news triggers a panic attack, and the man finds himself trapped in a nightmarish loop. The anxiety surrounding fatherhood is a central theme, not only in the man’s own fears about being a parent, as shown by his inaction on a train, but also in the stories of the other characters he encounters as he tries to escape.

I’m really struck by how beautifully Kawamura weaves his central idea into a simple story – it feels like a natural extension of the original material, not a confusing maze. It reminds me of the internet’s fascination with ‘liminal spaces’ – those strangely unsettling places like empty hallways or waiting rooms that the new A24 film Backrooms also explores. It’s all about appreciating the eerie feeling you get from these impersonal, temporary spaces when they’re deserted. In Exit 8, the Lost Man is trapped in this endless loop of tiled hallways, buzzing lights, and metal doors – places you’re not supposed to linger in, or even really see. But the only way out is to truly notice it. The film delivers some genuinely creepy moments, like the businessman who appears on cue…until he doesn’t. It’s unsettling to realize he wasn’t always just a background character. But mostly, the movie revels in the suffocating feeling of this impossible place, using long, flowing shots to emphasize how lost and stuck the protagonist is, and how he didn’t even know where he was going to begin with.

The film Exit 8 draws a parallel to Dante’s Inferno with its eight repeating loops, which the characters must navigate to escape their situation. While one character questions if they are dead, the movie implies their predicament isn’t an afterlife, but a reflection of a life already lived in a sort of emotional limbo. The protagonist has been drifting through life – working a job, letting relationships fade, and avoiding commitment. Actor Ninomiya portrays him as incomplete, fearful of becoming a father due to his own fatherless upbringing, and generally uncommitted to life. Exit 8 is a thriller that explores how the idea of parenthood can become overwhelming, yet ultimately, choosing to be present for another person isn’t as difficult as endlessly repeating the same routines without making progress. The film suggests that facing the responsibilities of life might be easier than being stuck in a meaningless cycle.

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2026-04-08 15:54