Exit 8 - Movie Review

The Movie: Exit 8

The Director: Genki Kawamura

The Cast: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kôchi, Kotone Hanase, Naru Asanuma, Nana Komatsu

The Story: A man becomes increasingly desperate when he realizes he is trapped in a subway station, needing to complete a mission to get out.

The Rating: 7 / 10

The Review: 

Okay, so video game adaptations have deservedly received a bad rap for years, if not decades, as most have been either underwhelming to say the least and sometimes downright horrible. Of course, there have been exceptions but for the most part that summation has been unfortunately true. Lately though, we seem to be entering an age of cinema where filmmakers are finally learning to understand what it takes to bring what made a game special to the big screen and I feel like Exit 8 is a pretty good example of that.

Video games and horror have always worked well together and the genre seems to have always had a firm hold on the platform so it makes sense that a game like this would be able to achieve some success in translation. If you're not familiar, the game (I've never played it myself) takes the player through a scenario where every detail must be firmly in place and even the slightest variation, or anomaly, if missed will send them back to a designated starting point. The fun in this is how it allows for some genuine tension and legit scares in how things are set up. I mean, just look at the creepy guy in the image above. I wouldn't want to cross paths with that guy under any circumstances.

The basic setup for this movie is placed in subway station walkways and we end up seeing the "game" played out from a few different perspectives which helped a lot to keep things interesting since it's a fairly repetitive concept. I also like how (this might be slightly spoilery but not in a way that reveals plot details) there's no lengthy backstory or the standard digging into why this is happening. It just happens to these people because it happens and maybe someday we'll learn why but not today. For me, it was refreshing to see the story play out without all that exposition and explanation.

Lead actor Kazunari Ninomiya, who you may remember from Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, also helps to keep the story from becoming monotonous with a performance that is engaging while also being fairly understated which is necessary as a contrast to the more outlandish characters like smiling guy. Overall, the performances are exactly what the movie needs to maintain the intense and, at times, scary tone that it's looking to convey. Ultimately, this is a solid movie that knows exactly what it needs to do to entertain a theater audience while staying faithful to the source material.

Thank you for taking the time to read this review.