The Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) has the same routine every morning, going to his temp job on a packed train. However, today he witnesses a woman with a crying baby getting yelled at by another passenger, while no one steps in to do anything. He’s guilty as well, just putting in his earbuds and listening to Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” to drown out the commotion and pretend like he didn’t notice. His ex-girlfriend tries to call him several times, and when he finally answers, she tells him that she’s pregnant and at the hospital, and she wants him to make a decision as to how to proceed. The man has an asthmatic panic attack, and tells her that he’ll meet her at the hospital, before his phone loses signal.

As he tries to make his way through the underground subway corridors towards Exit 8, the Lost Man discovers that he is trapped in some sort of loop, with the exit numbers resetting before he can ever reach Exit 8. He also continuously passes the same Walking Man (Yamato Kôchi) over and over again. He starts to panic, the M.C. Escher poster on the wall of every corridor reminding him of his situation. There are some instructions on the walls noting that he should pay attention to any anomalies he sees. However, even with paying close attention, looking for any changes or anything out of the ordinary, and following these to a T, he still manages to miss things, and remains trapped.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in these corridors, just the Walking Man, who doesn’t speak to or interact with him. He’s like an NPC. Though there are some unsettling and creepy moments where the man just stands there frozen, and when the Lost man truns back to look at him, he has this creepy ear-to-ear grin grin, and also seems to move closer, not unlike a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who.

It’s not until he encounters The Boy (Naru Asanuma), who appears to be similarly trapped, that the Lost Man has someone to talk to—and even then, he assumes this boy is just an anomaly. However, the two decide to work together in hopes of making it to the exit. What is this place and why are they stuck here? Are they being punished for something? Is there even a way out of this seemingly endless repeating and resetting hell?
 

Exit 8 is part of the latest trends of both liminal horror movies—which seem to be focused less on plot and more about tone and feeling—and indie video game adaptations. This film is an adaptation of the video game The Exit 8 from Kotake Create. It doesn’t really have a complicated story to it (though there is certainly some deeper meaning that could be read into it that may or may not have been intentional—in the disc’s bonus material, the director even admits that the film is “something I couldn’t fully understand myself.”

The viewer is initially (and literally) put in the POV of the nameless protagonist, the Lost Man, as he tries to figure out what is going on, how he got there, and how to get out. We follow him as he grows increasing more frustrated and fed up. Along the way he is forced to face his own fears and contemplate his life’s choices. He often hears crying babies, reminding him of both his lack of action on the subway as well as the pending “which is it?” question from his ex-girlfriend, which continues to haunt him. While the focus is primarily on the Lost Man, there are a couple moments later in the film where the focus seamlessly shifts to the POV of the Walking Man, where we get to actually hear what he is thinking and learn more about his situation, and this leads into the POV of The Boy, filling in the gap of what happened before he met up with the Lost Man.

While Exit 8 is labeled as “Horror”, there was really only one major scene that actually felt like it would apply. In general, there isn’t a lot of blood (early on there’s one minor instance of some blood dripping from the ceiling), but it’s generally sound that is used for jump scares. The soundscape is also used quite effectively for the one horror-like scene, with flashing lights, mutated creatures, and a full-on aural cacophony to amp up the fear. Other than that, the film primarily goes for this general vibe of mystery and frustration, rather than scares.

NEON/Alliance Home Entertainment have released Exit 8 on Blu-ray and Digital. We were sent the Blu-ray release for review, which looks and sounds amazing. The picture is crisp and clean with an excellent level of detail throughout. The stark white tiled corridors set the tone for the film, and when things do start to happen, the changing hues and colors of these hallways are captured beautifully. The audio track is amazing. When I first saw this in the theater, I was hoping they’d be able to recapture that experience at home, and they do. As the Lost Man is in the hallway, you can hear the constant approaching footsteps of the Walking Man from behind as he gets closer and then in front as he passes our protagonist. During one scene, the crying baby sounds come from every direction. And during the one particularly horror scene, the skittering of creatures and other chaos is so unsettling as it fills the room. The film also has a wide variety of scores, from creepy and mysterious, to choral and uplifting, and the delightful “Bolero” from the Lost Man’s earbuds—it always sounds great.

The Blu-ray disc is packed in a standard HD keepcase without any digital copy. Our review copy did not include any slipcover. The disc also contains an interesting hour-long Making Of featurette as well as some festival Q&A footage with the director and 2 of the stars.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:35:01)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.35:1
• Audio: Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• Subtitles: English, English SDH, French

Extras:

Presented in Japanese with English subtitles.
• The Making of Exit 8 (59:15)
  The cast and crew discuss the making of the film, the challenges of adapting a game with little story into a film, their inspirations for the movie, the self-referential loop and character at the core of the film, the setting and filming location, the script writing process, the opening scene, building the set, the nameless characters, the costumes, the editing process, re-shoots, and more. Includes behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with director Genki Kawamura, producers Yuto Sakata and Kenji Yamada, screenwriter Kentaro Hirase, production designer Ryo Sugimoto, game developer Kotake Create, stylist Daisuke Iga, cinematographer Keisuke Imamura, star Kazunari Ninomiya (“Lost Man”), and VFX supervisor Seiji Masamoto.
• Q&A with Writer/Director Genki Kawamura (12:08)
  At the 2025 Busan International Film Festival, director Genki Kawamura is joined on stage by actors Kazunari Ninomiya & Yamato Kôchi (“Walking Man”) to discuss the making of the film. Note: five minutes in, the audio goes silent for 45 seconds, and there are no subtitles offered during this portion either.
• Trailer (2:01)

Final Thoughts:

Exit 8 is a unique experience that takes viewers on a ride as they try to figure out what is going on along with the main character. Even though the majority of the film takes place in one setting, the film remain engaging and interesting, especially as things start to change. I can’t say that I fully understood what I watched, but the film is open for interpretation, and ends in a slightly ambiguous way. The Blu-ray is an easy recommendation for fans of the movie. NEON’s physical release looks and sounds amazing—the use of sound in this film in phenomenal, plus the disc contains some interesting and entertaining behind-the-scenes bonus material. Exit 8 is also currently steaming on Shudder/AMC+ for those who subscribe and wish to check it out there before making a blind buy.