Exit 8 (2025)

While commuting to his second job, a man (Kazunari Ninomiya) receives a call from his ex (Nana Komatsu) with news that she’s pregnant. When she asks if she should keep the child, the man begins to panic; but being a sperm slinger is just the beginning of his problems. He discovers that he is trapped in an unending maze in the underground subway system. The same hallway repeats over and over again, and his only way out is to pay close attention to the details and to turn back when he sees any anomalies. And worse still, he isn’t alone down there.

For the first time in the history of filmmaking, a movie has come out based on a video game! I’ve only ever seen a playthrough of the 2023 “walking simulator” that Exit 8 is based on, but it translated to a film quite well thanks to a great script from Kentaro Hirase and excellent direction from director/co-scripter Genki Kawamura. This liminal space horror film has some chills, but mainly it’s hypnotic and thrilling with an unexpected emotional punch. The creators of the game and the filmmakers deftly capture the horrors of the endless mundanity of the daily grind and the terror of when chaos rolls up to break the loop we’ve come to rely on.