1 of 4 | The Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya, L) is stuck looking for “Exit 8,” in theaters Friday, with The Boy (Naru Asanuma). Photo courtesy of Neon
The video game Exit 8 is compatible with a single location horror movie. Genki Kawamura’s film adaptation, in theaters Friday, mines a movie’s worth of frights and twists out of a single hallway.
A Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) exits his train and answers a call from his ex-girlfriend (Nana Komatsu), who just took a positive pregnancy test. The call cuts out and the Lost Man finds himself wandering an infinite loop of hallway.
He’s not alone. A Walking Man (Yamato Kochi) completes a loop every time the hallway resets. When the Lost Man stops him, the Walking Man’s overexaggerated grin is creepy.
A child (Naru Asanuma) also appears periodically, but that’s it: three characters in a hallway and a woman’s voice on the phone.
The Lost Man’s exit from the train until he enters the hall is filmed from his point of view, mimicking a player in a video game. Fortunately, the rest of the film takes an objective perspective on the actors, preserving the first-person effect in its single moment.
The camera still follows the Lost Man in long takes through several iterations of the same hall. The idea of being stuck in an infinite hallway is more nightmare logic than video game. It’s both, but who hasn’t had recurring dreams where they can’t leave a familiar place?
Once The Lost Man realizes that every corner he turns takes him back to the same hallway, he tries to solve the puzzle. He memorizes the posters and accessories on the walls, and considers any anomaly a clue to finding Exit 8.
So each pass varies the Lost Man’s trek through the hall in subtle and surreal ways. Crying baby sounds in lockers and a random cat are David Lynchian, but mutant animals and bleeding walls are more overtly horrific.
The film follows the Walking Man and the Boy for brief sections but returns to the Lost Man.The ultimate twist is not entirely unpredictable as a Twilight Zone scenario, but the film justifies it.
The platonic ideal of a horror staple in one location was The Evil Dead in a cabin. Saw cut to outside stories but kept audiences coming back to the main characters chained in the bathroom. Cube used a single set to create a series of deathtraps.
Exit 8 offers enough of a twist on the contained hallway to distinguish itself, but honors the inescapable dread of the scenario.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
