I’ve long been fascinated by what I call No Exit Horror, a term I’ve coined for a sub-genre rooted in existential dread, where characters are trapped in singular, oppressive spaces they cannot escape. Think of such liminal space thrillers as Cube, Dead End, Pontypool, or even The Shining. I took the name from French writer/philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, of course, and like his play No Exit, these films trap their characters not just in rooms but in loops of self-denial, regret, or moral indecision.
Genki Kawamura’s masterful Exit 8, which just had its eerie and unforgettable premiere in the Cannes Midnight Screenings section, uses this trope so effectively that it might just be the most exceptional video game adaptation ever made.
Adapted from a cult Japanese video game, Exit 8 follows “The Lost Man,” played with raw and adorable restraint by Kazunari Ninomiya (Letters from Iwo Jima, Gantz). On a tedious underground commute home from his desk job, he quickly finds himself trapped in an endless underground subway corridor, forced to detect subtle anomalies, glitches in reality, that signal whether it’s safe to proceed to the next exit, aka level.
He loops back to the beginning if he misses something out of place. It’s the perfect metaphor for the paralysis of modern professional life, trapped in the endless maze designed by the evils of capitalism: the hallway, sterile and endless, is less a location than a state of mind. He is, quite literally, going nowhere. And I’m sure most of us can find it relatable on some level.
Exit 8 is more than just a stylish horror experiment or the astute staging of a unique and inexpensive IP. It’s a tragic and intimate character study following a broken hero’s journey where the monster isn’t lurking around a corner. The Lost Man is on his way home from a job he clearly loathes. He’s exhausted, emotionally disconnected, and stuck in the passive inertia of a life he never truly chose. And then, suddenly, fatherhood looms.
The great twist of Exit 8 is that its horror and drama are mostly emotional, not supernatural or sci-fi. Kawamura has crafted a film about the terror of becoming a parent before you’re ready. About accepting love when you’re not sure you’re worthy. The anomaly in this man’s life isn’t a shadowy figure or an off-kilter passageway. Instead, it’s the terrifying prospect of loving someone more than yourself. And being loved in return. The hallway becomes purgatory for a man who can’t admit he’s scared—scared of responsibility, commitment, and growing up.
Ninomiya’s performance is essential here. It’s not flashy, but it’s deep. He expertly plays emotional numbness, with shoulders sloped under decades of unspoken guilt and generational/gender expectation. There’s a quiet beauty in how little he says and how much he shows. When change finally comes, it’s not triumphant. It’s terrifying. And it’s earned.
As The Lost Man repeats the corridor again and again, each loop becomes a step along a fractured, nonlinear path toward emotional accountability. He isn’t trying to escape. He’s trying to accept. He’s trying to become someone capable of being loved, and of loving in return. And that might be the scariest journey a horror movie has ever asked of a man. And he’s not alone. The eerie and quick introduction of “The Walking Man” is frightening, then tragic. A perfect side quest during an already pristine mainline story.
The atmosphere in Exit 8 draws on a similar liminal energy felt in brilliant liminal horror projects like P.T. and The Backrooms, but where those stories revel in abstract terror, Kawamura’s film weaponises drama and character study with a teaspoon of hope. Ultimately, there isn’t a clear resolution. But it does provide reflection. It asks what happens to those of us who live on autopilot. Those who accept careers we hate, relationships we don’t nurture, and the futures we never chose. It’s about how modern men inherit silence and mistake it for strength. And how love … real, scary, adult love … demands presence and vulnerability. It demands that you exit the loop.
With Exit 8, Genki Kawamura has crafted a haunting cautionary tale for the emotionally paralysed. It’s a masterpiece of “No Exit Horror”: intimate, tragic, and impressively human. Forget boss battles, this is a video game adaptation where the final level is fatherhood, and like the process of being born, the only way out is through.
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