On Monday, May 19th, at 12:30 a.m., the film The Exit 8 premiered, and what a great time for this horror thriller to come out! The story follows the main character, who is left nameless, going only by the title “Lost Man.” At the same time, on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, he attempts to navigate the train station, but eventually realizes he is going in circles with no way out. Eventually, stopping to read the rules of this “game,” the main character must never overlook anything out of the ordinary, and turn back once he sees something if he wishes to escape this prison. The film only has two characters with “names,” they are Lost Man, played by Kazunari Ninomiya, and Walking Man, played by Yamato Kôchi, however, three more names are credited, that being Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, and Nana Komatsu. The Director of the film Genki Kawamura is credited as a writer on nine projects, a director of three movies, and a producer on a staggering 39 projects.
Having no clue that this film was based on a video game of the same name before seeing the film made everything seem a lot more creative; however, learning about the film’s history after leaving the premiere made all the pieces fall into place. The camera work, the character movements, the plot, and the creepy, interesting, and creative jump scares derive themselves from classic, simplistic horror games that become popular overnight because of the internet. The original game was so popular that when it came out two years ago in November 2023, only a year after the film’s creation was announced in December 2024, and now finally the completed movie came out a year after that in May of 2025. Even though with such little time between each milestone, this movie holds up well, and it would almost be impossible to guess that this film was made in a short time frame.
Coming in at one hour and thirty-five minutes, this film is a perfect runtime for a horror thriller movie with a simple concept, none of the scenes feel too long or too short, everything takes the right amount of time to understand and comprehend what the film is saying. However, when it comes to this film’s horror, don’t go into the theatre assuming that it’ll have everyone in the audience screaming and squirming in their seats; this is not that type of horror movie. Although filled with multiple intense scenes and jump scares, there’s no point where this film does anything that’ll scare anyone into leaving the theatre or feeling sick to their stomachs. On the other hand, what the film lacks in horror it makes up for in a story, the plot, although a bit simplistic is exactly what it needs to be and it thoroughly fleshes out all of its characters enough for you to root for them and care, which is rare for most recent horror movies. For a film based on a video game made recently, whose plot revolves around repeating the same tasks again and again, and that only has two names listed on the cast list, whose names are Lost Man and Walking Man, it is impressive how great this film turned out to be.
